The Yorkshire Wildlife Park was built on land formerly occupied by the 260-acre (110 ha) Brockholes Farm Visitor Centre.
In February 2010, the park rescued 13 lions from a Romanian zoo and, after their quarantine period, released them into the newly built 10-acre (4.0 ha) Lion Country enclosure.
In 2011, the zoo opened Land of the Tigers, which contains two pools and a waterfall and was created next to a wetland reserve. Visitors view the tigers from a 150-metre (490 ft) long raised walkway, with the tiger enclosure on one side of the walkway and the wetlands on the other.
In March 2012, the park opened Leopard Heights, a £300,000 open-topped enclosure that lets visitors view the Amur leopards from an 8-metre (26 ft) viewing tower or from ground level through a 10-metre (33 ft) long glass wall. The 6,000-square-metre (65,000 sq ft) enclosure is claimed to be the largest leopard enclosure in the world.
In July 2014, the park opened a large enclosure for polar bears, named Project Polar, with the first bear being 500 kg male Victor; a second arrived in March 2015 called Pixel, who is Victor’s grandson.
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