A new concept

Having taken the risk of investing an important part of the family fortune in his Wildlife project, The Viscount de La Panouse then had to face the hostility of influential established zoologists convinced that his concept was impossible to execute. Open to the public in May 1968, Thoiry's Wildlife Park fulfilled an extraordinary ambition based on a revolutionary idea. Thoiry's visitors, behind closed windows, in the safety of their automobiles,  could drive through the animals' territory. Civilized man was caged, a prisoner of a heap of metal, while the wild animals roamed nonchalantly free. At Thoiry, the total concept of a zoo was rethought, and has since widely influenced new creations. The Viscount has himself created the Wildlife Parks of Sigean and of Peaugres in France and has been consulted by numerous foreign governments.,  He has, also, with his American wife, Annabelle,  opened a new theme park in the 900 year old family estate, the Château du Colombier Eden Medieval with a medieval Bestiary,  near Rodez, France, in the Aveyron. In his ambition to recreate a  20th century Noah's Ark, this creator of  wildlife parks seems to want to remind us  that Man, exiled from Eden's earthly paradise, was also the cause of the exclusion of his fellow animals, a responsability that imposes a debt towards these innocent creatures, prisoners of the instant. Thus, Thoiry was conceived to seal a new alliance between Men and the Animals, to celebrate the ecological virtues  and to create a living image of terrestial Paradise for the animals, their brothers in misfortune. Perhaps for this reason, when we look an animal in the eyes, we often have the feeling that a man is hidden inside and laughing at us.