Living Coasts has now bred over 100 Inca terns. And experts are putting their success down to top quality design.

The South American birds are colourful, inquisitive and sociable and have proved to be a hit with visitors. Torquay’s coastal zoo started out with 16 birds and bred 32 this year.

Living Coasts senior head keeper Tony Durkin said: “Our animal husbandry is of a very high standard, but it also shows the benefits of exceptional and innovative exhibit design. Torquay’s mild climate means the birds can spend the winter outside, rather than be taken indoors, which is what happens elsewhere. We have natural sea water which is excellent for the birds, we have enough room for them to nest without competition and we have a huge flying space - 1.8 million cubic feet. This combination is unmatched anywhere else in Europe.”

Living Coasts is enclosed by a vast net held up by 35 masts up to 19 metres (60 feet) high. The mesh is 5,500 square metres, some 59,000 square feet or nearly 1.4 acres in area. It encloses a volume of 50,000m3 or 1.8 million cubic feet of free flight.

Tony added: “We give all our birds the environment and the opportunity to mate, breed and rear young naturally, with as little human input as possible. It means that staff are able to study natural behaviours and learn more about the species we keep here. We know we can find them good homes by sharing them with other zoos. We would like to take on the challenge of keeping rarer species in the future – though, by their very nature, there are far fewer of these in zoos.”