THIS FUNDRAISER IS NOW CLOSED
Thanks to your overwhelming support and generosity, we reached our target of £15,000 on 20 November 2024.
To celebrate this milestone, we are launching a unique competition where you can donate as little as £5 to enter into our prize draw for a chance to win a CROCODILE FEEDING EXPERIENCE.
Bring Back the Swamp!
Our hugely popular Crocodile Swamp exhibit sadly closed its doors in 2022. This unique and immersive space was home to threatened crocodiles, mesmerising snakes, and a host of other fascinating creatures to inspire and engage our visitors. Now, we’re ready to bring it back to life.

How You Can Help
We are appealing to our community to help us Bring Back the Swamp! We’re determined to reopen the swamp and give it the revitalisation it deserves. With your support, we can rebuild the entrance, restore the interior, and introduce some new fascinating animals to inspire the next generation.

Thank you for your support.

Why is Crocodile Swamp so important?
Crocodile Swamp was built in 2008 and on opening, rapidly became one of Paignton Zoo’s most popular attractions. Home to a host of incredible animals and plants, the Swamp brought visitors up close and personal with crocodiles, snakes, lizards, and more in a steamy, tropical environment that perfectly replicated some of the threatened areas of the world that Paignton Zoo works to protect.

Although some of the Swamp’s original inhabitants have moved to zoos elsewhere (our Komodo dragon Khaleesi is now at London Zoo for example) it is still home to Cuban crocodile ‘Spice’ and Sunda gharial ‘Lima’ who now have access to a choice of pools and resting spaces. As work progresses to reopen the Swamp, we will announce the other species that will be joining Spice and Lima in readiness for the return of our visitors.
Our dedicated team have been working hard since 2022 to fix some of the underlying challenges that lead to its closure. Some of these have now been resolved and our appeal now, is to seek help in raising the funds to enable the remaining work to be completed. Some of this is to do with the interior of the building, but the main task is to construct a replacement entrance ramp to allow safe visitor entry to the exhibit.


Since opening in 2008, Crocodile Swamp has played a huge part in visitor’s memories of their visit to Paignton Zoo. Come rain or shine, it amazed, engaged, and inspired everyone who visited it, and its closure in 2022 came as a huge disappointment for staff, visitors, and zoo supporters alike. Our zoo is facing a number of challenges at this time, however we believe that bringing back the swamp can act as a rallying cry to move us forward, providing an incredible experience for future visitors, young and old alike.
Paignton Zoo has always been Paignton’s Zoo.
It has been part of the Torbay community for more than a century and we felt it was only right that we gave our supporters the opportunity to do something tangible to help us as we strive to overcome our current challenges. Whether large or small, a donation to this appeal allows us to move a step closer to bringing the swamp back to life, and giving our zoo, Paignton’s Zoo, a brighter future
One of the key aims of any modern zoo is to engage its visitors with its animals, in order to highlight the conservation challenges that they face, and reveal ways in which people can help to protect them. Crocodile Swamp was hugely popular and led many visitors to rethink their opinions about crocodiles, snakes, and reptiles in general. These fearsome predators are actually intelligent, complex, and beautiful creatures, and they need our help, more than ever, to survive. Bringing back the Swamp will allow thousands more people to witness these misunderstood marvels and help us achieve our mission of helping to halt species decline.
