WORK to build a 20-acre elephant sanctuary – believed to be the biggest in Europe – has started at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Wraxall.
The attraction, called Elephant Eden, will cost £1.2 million and will boast a heated 1,120sq metre elephant house and heated swimming pools.
The new enclosure, which will include sand yards, mud wallows and crops for strip grazing, will open by next summer.
Work on the main elephant house and fencing around the site will be finished by Christmas with the rest of the work being completed in the spring.
The development, which is expected to have five permanent residents and room for up to five more, has been designed to offer welfare improvements to elephants already living in captivity and could become home to elephants with behavioural issues which are causing them difficulties in their present homes.
The project, which will create four new jobs, including one for a specially trained elephant keeper, is being part financed by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development's Investing in Rural Areas scheme.
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