Christmas Opening Times 2024

It’s that time of year when we post our Christmas opening times. This year is basically just CLOSED for the Sunday and bank holidays but here is the full list anyway.

gloucester petsshop opening hours

Christmas Opening hours

Friday 22nd 10am-5:30pm

Saturday 23rd 10am – 5:30pm

Christmas Eve – CLOSED

Christmas Day – CLOSED

Boxing Day – CLOSED

Wednesday 27th 10am – 5:30pm

Thursday 28th 10am – 5:30pm

Friday 29th 10am – 5:30pm

Saturday 30th 10am – 5:30pm

New Years Eve – CLOSED

New Years Day – CLOSED

Tuesday 2nd January – Back to normal opening hours

Frozen Reptile Food

There is a lot of noise being made about a recall of frozen rodents for reptiles at the moment. There have been a number of cases of salmonella food poisoning loosely linked to reptile owners. Tests have revealed that one supplier has had salmonella found in the frozen rodents they supply to the trade. As a result, several businesses have been forced to recall their stock if they use this supplier.

We have never used this supplier for frozen rodents and so have not been directly effected by this recall. Our own supplier regularly tests for salmonella throughout their process and at the time of writing all tests continue to prove negative. So far so good.

However, as some of the businesses effected (such as Pets at Home) are quite large and as their customers are having to find new shops to purchase their own supplies from; this is now effecting the rest of the supply chain. Additional pressure is being applied as shops that were effected by the poor quality of their existing supplier are having to find better, safer supplies elsewhere. We are now seeing shortages in our supply chain as this increased demand all round starts to bite.

Whilst we still have large supplies in store, we are now seeing shortages in some sizes when re-ordering. We have fresh deliveries every week so these shortages will soon start to become apparent. Obviously we are also seeing increased demand as other shops’ customers start coming to us to find supplies.

Please make sure you get your supplies early, before you run out of your own stocks at home as over the next few weeks we do invisage running low of some sizes, particularly of mice.

Of course, even though our supplies have proved negative for salmonella it is always necessary to wash your hands after handling any animal. I am sure I don’t have to tell our own customers to wash their hands after handling a dead rat and before putting your hands anywhere near your face, work surfaces or food but apparently it seems there are about 900 people since 2015 that did need telling because they clearly didn’t do it!

The Angell Pets Team

New, Extended Opening Hours

With the continued easing of lock down measures, things are slowly returning to normal. This week schools started to re-open and even more year groups start back next week. Whilst lock down has been on we have been closing early in order to carry out deliveries to local customers who were self isolating or just could not get to us. With kids going back to school, customers will want us to be there after schools close so they can shop or pick up orders on their way home. We are also seeing a drop off in the amount of free home delivery orders in the afternoons as more people are coming to us to shop so we are now in a position to extend the opening hours to pre-covid times (remember them, it seems a lifetime ago).

Our new opening hours are as follows from Monday 07/09/2020

Monday 1pm – 5:30pm

Tuesday 10am – 5:30pm

Wednesday 10am- 5:30pm

Thursday 10am – 5:30pm

Friday 10am – 5:30pm

Saturday10am – 5:30pm

Sunday – CLOSED

Bank Holidays – CLOSED

Customers using the FREE local home delivery service will be pleased to hear we will be keeping this on for the foreseeable future. Obviously deliveries will be later in the day now as we won’t be starting until 5:30pm. We are happy to provide this free service but would ask those customers that are able to visit the store to do so as it really does stretch our limited and rather ageing (me) work force. Of course some of the items we sell are rather bulky and we are happy to continue to deliver these.

The Angel Pets Team

A Sunny Afternoon Trip to One of Our Livestock Suppliers

We are often asked “where do you get your livestock from?” The truth is that the answer is not straight forward. We stock a very wide range of livestock and there is not a single suplier in the country that supplies a fraction of that range. Some animals we breed ourselves, although not many now due to ill health over the last few years, some come from local breeders that we have used for a number of years, some come from “breeder collectives”, groups of breeders who pool excess stock to sell to pet shops, some come from larger suppliers (again, suppliers we have used for years and can trust). There are also some sources we do not use. Rodent farms (we have visited one of these and wouldn’t use them on ethical grounds), accidental litters resulting from people buying mis-gendered pets from a well known pet supermarket (high risk of sibling mating), random people cold calling and trying to sell us animals (possibly stolen). We visit our suppliers homes or business premises to make sure we are happy with the conditions the animals are being bred/housed in first.

One Sunday in June we took the opportunity afforded by the slight easing of lockdown measures and a beautiful summers day to visit George and his partner Claire for a barbeque in their garden and to collect two crested geckos, bred in their collection at the college they work at. Whilst there I took the opportunity to take a few photos to show what one of our suppliers facilities looks like. This college teaches a variety of equine, agricultural, horticultural and animal courses. As well as taking classes, George is tasked with looking after the collection of animals kept on the college, including developing their environments.

The existing aviaries are stocked with a variety of small birds, including Zebra finches supplied by Angell Pets. There are also large new aviaries currently being developed with different levels of plant growth. The corona virus pandemic has put a hold on populating these as there are currently no students on site but when things return to normal new birds will be sourced for these.

Meerkat enclosure, ferrets, rabbits, aviary.

Where the old aviaries are sited there is also a large compound of other enclosures housing Meerkats, ferrets, chinchillas, guinea pigs (some supplied by Angell Pets for breeding), rabbits, tortoises and others.

Inside the building is a rodent room with rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils, degus, chipmunks etc. Another room houses the aquatics section with cold water and tropical fish (some supplied by Angell Pets – angelfish and sydontis and some from which we have had supplies – swordtails and guppies) and terrapins (although these are to go outside into an adapted pond enclosure soon).

In the reptile room are frogs (including a huge African bull frog, grey tree frogs and Brazilian milk frogs – supplied by Angell Pets), salamanders and musk turtles (tank and turtles supplied by Angell Pets). Also there is a large enclosure for a common boa, corn snakes, royal pythons, bearded dragons, a water dragon (supplied by Angell Pets), leopard geckos (some supplied by Angell Pets), crested geckos (breeding colony) and skinks. In a separate room, all to itself is an adult male green iguana.

Back outside at the rear and sides of the buildings and enclosures are several paddocks. One contains the old duck pond (where the terrapins are going to go) with some ducks still to be transferred down the site to the new, larger pond. Next door are the chickens, where my old hens spent their final days when I became to ill to look after them. Behind are some of the pigs. Further back are the goats and alpacas and further back still are the sheep and llamas. coming back round to the other side of the compound are the donkeys and a pony. There are more livestock in the agricultural department, where the stables, milking sheds and farrowing pens including cattle and horses. We have visited these facilities before but my legs weren’t up to it this time. It’s a big site!

Down towards the entrance is the horticultural department, new aviaries and large duck pond. Some impressive growing tunnels and planting areas, not at their best at the moment due to the lack of activity on site with the lock down but still looking good in the bright sunshine. This is where some of the plants we have on sale in our shop for bio-active set ups come from, including those in the leopard gecko set up on our counter.

As well as the crested geckos we have already sourced from George, when the guinea pigs start breeding we will be having their excess stock. If the leopard geckos breed again we will also have these. Once the aviaries are up and running properly I am sure the birds will start breeding and we will also source some of our birds from here too. The purpose of the collection is to teach animal handling, husbandry and welfare not to breed animals commercially. However in discharging these duties there will be excess animals produced and I am sure having seen the excellent conditions the animals are kept in and the time, effort and indeed money that is spent on their welfare, they are a good fit with our mission statement of promoting ethical and responsible pet care.

The crested geckos mentioned are now on sale in our shop as are zebra finches from the same cohort as those supplied by us for the aviaries. Incidentally we also supplied the original birds for the aviaries at Hartpury college just after George finished his degree there, from memory they had cockatiels, budgies, Java sparrows, zebra finch, Japanese quail and Chinese painted quail.

We are in the process of developing new aviaries and animal enclosures in our Hucclecote store so I am sure our relationship with this excellent supplier will continue to grow.

The Angell Pets Team

Increase in Gloucester Pet Shop Opening Hours

Fortunately we have been able to keep our Gloucester pet shop open throughout the lock down period. We have done this by monitoring government advice, customer behaviours and expectations and especially the needs of those in our community particularly at risk from the virus. As the situation has evolved we have adjusted our opening times, provided new services and restricted non essential sales.

At the weekend the situation changed again and in view of this and changes to the products we can offer (livestock), the associated welfare needs of this livestock and changes in our customers’ behaviours, we have made further adjustments to our opening hours to cope.

A few weeks ago we reduced our opening hours to 2pm closing. This was to enable us to do FREE local delivery. A lot of our customers could not or would rather not come to us during the peak of the pandemic. We had also stopped selling animals (non essential) and actually had very few left in stock. Feeding, watering, cleaning, health checking and monitoring of the livestock is actually what takes up most of the time in the business. We were therefor able to close to do the deliveries because of the time saved by not having a lot of livestock in. As I posted below, this has now changed and we are selling animals again and so we need this time back.

gloucester pet shop

Also many of our customers now feel more able to come to us and actually prefer it because they can browse the shop better than they can the website. Quite a lot like the excuse to get out after weeks of being shut in. It helps them that they can do this safely because of the control measures we already had in place in our Gloucester pet shop in the period prior to lock down. These measures, allowing social distancing remain in place. This has reduced the demand for FREE local delivery, enabling us to reduce the time spent on this service. It is still available to those requiring it but we will be starting the deliveries later in the day. In order to ensure we can still get to all the customers that really do still need us to deliver we have increased the minimum order from £5 to £10. This is to hopefully reduce the amount of deliveries further (we were delivering to some very local customers who weren’t self isolating every other day with orders a couple of pence over the minimum each time).

With the reduced time for the deliveries we have also introduced a delivery schedule, to avoid delivering to opposite ends of the patch on the same night and wasting most of the available time in one long journey. We will continue to monitor the situation and make changes if any of this causes our customers any issues.

gloucester pet shop

The new schedule for FREE local delivery from our Gloucester pet shop is below along with a couple of sensible conditions.


Property must be sack truck assessible. We will leave the order at the front door of the main property, telephone the contact number given (or knock, or both) and wait until someone collects the package. We will make only one delivery attempt. If you are not in, or do not answer, the order can be collected from our shop from the following working day onward. If you can do orders to collect please do so as delivery numbers will be limited for the time being. Click and collect is available on our web store but FREE local delivery orders MUST be done by telephone on 01452 501882 and paid for in advance by card. Sorry, no cash on delivery. Cash purchases can only be done in store.

Minimum order £10
Orders must be in by 3pm for same day delivery.


Monday – Hucclecote. Longlevens, Longford, Churchdown, Innsworth, Cheltenham, Brockworth.

Tuesday – Abbeymead, Abbeydale, Coney Hill/Saintbridge, Upton, Robinswood/Matson, Glos Centre, Tuffley,Tredworth, Podsmead Kingsway/Quedgeley, Hempstead.

Wednesday – Hucclecote. Longlevens, Longford, Churchdown, Innsworth, Cheltenham, Brockworth.

Thursday – Abbeymead, Abbeydale, Coney Hill/Saintbridge, Upton, Robinswood/Matson, Glos Centre, Tuffley,Tredworth, Podsmead Kingsway/Quedgeley, Hempstead.

Friday – Painswick, Stroud & The Forest of Dean (£5 Charge)

Collection in store AVAILABLE FROM OUR gLOUCESTER PET SHOP AT 2/3 GLENVILLE PARADE, HUCCLECTOE, GLOUCETER GL3 3ES.

The Angell Pets Team

FREE Local Delivery Is Back

As the lockdown continues and the government continues to encourage everyone to stay at home as much as possible we have decided to do our bit to help. As of today we are re-introducing our FREE local delivery service for ALL customers.

We used to offer this service from our last premises but had to withdraw it following a spinal injury and subsequent serious illness that left me unable to lift anything (or even to stand at one point) and impeded my mobility. In order to enable us to bring the service back Billie will have to do the deliveries and that means we have to close the shop early each day to do it.

free local delivery

From today we have introduced new reduced opening hours to enable us to carry out deliveries (and supplier collections) in the afternoons. The new hours are as follows:-

Monday 13:00 – 1600

Tuesday 10:00 – 14:00

Wednesday 10:00 – 14:00

Thursday 10:00 – 14:00

Friday 10:00 – 14:00

Saturday 10:00 – 14:00

FREE local delivery will be available for ALL orders over £5 to the following postcodes:- GL1, GL2, GL3, GL4 GL50, GL51 (that’s Cheltenham and Gloucester). Please telephone your order to 01452 501882 before 14:00. If it is a stock item we will deliver that day or the next. If it is not something we usually stock (or is currently out of stock) we will deliver it when the order arrives at the shop. We will still be OPEN everyday to receive deliveries and for those customers who still wish to visit the shop. Please note that all orders for the FREE delivery must be placed by telephone and paid for by card at the time of ordering. We cannot do cash on delivery at this time.

If you give us your contact number we can call you just before we arrive then knock and leave the item on our doorstep for you to come out and retrieve it before we leave. Alternatively we can leave it in a previously agreed secure area at the customers risk. Everyone should be home (that’s kind of the point of doing this) so we will only attempt one delivery. If we cannot get a response we will return the item to the shop for collection by the customer. Of course click and collect is still available on our website and by telephone. This system has been working well up to this point.

We are already doing FREE delivery to the vulnerable members of our community and we have reduced the minimum order value for this service to £5 to make it even easier for them to shop. The shop early closing is just to carryout the large volume of deliveries we are getting and expect to see increase. We are very busy and cannot cope with the deliveries with the shop still open and needing staffing. Please note this delivery service is for essential items so we will not be delivering animals. We insist that customers come to the shop to view animals before purchasing anyway and have suspended most animal sales during the current crisis.

So for FREE local delivery call 01452 501882 before 14:00. If you call after 14:00 we will be out delivering so will have to call you back when we are in the shop, which won’t be until the next working day.

Gloucester Pet Shop Webstore Is Changing

Our popular webstore for our Gloucester Pet Shop is changing. We have used the same platform for a number of years and support for this platform is ceasing in the new year (a bit like Windows 7 support and security updates also ceasing next year).

We had a number of options available to us. Our current supplier offered us an update to a more modern platform. Unfortunately they wanted to charge us nearly £10,000 for the privilege so they have been told where to go. We have now found a new supplier with a cloud based platform. Over the last few weeks Billie and I have been busy putting all the stock onto the new EPos system (till) and this integrates with the new website. The basic form of the website is now ready to launch (we can add the fancy pictures and banners at our leisure). Unfortuantely we have to get our domain released by the old supplier so we can repoint it to our new site and this involves a bit of email to and fro so will take a day or two. Whilst this happens the site will suddenly stop working until we have completed the redirect.

During this period if anyone has an order they wish to place, please call us at our Gloucester pet shop on 01452 501882 so we can use the good old telephone ordering system. We will post when the new site is up and running. This site is not affected by these changes and will continue to work.

As part of the change over our old loyalty scheme is no more. Point’s collection and voucher issue was dealt with by the old system and this suddenly stopped working some weeks ago. Any customers with valid vouchers please bring the paper voucher with you to redeem by the end of this month. After that we will no longer have access to the old system at all and can no longer accept the old vouchers..

We are considering how to do a new loyalty scheme on the new system but it will look completely different and we will launch that once we have got over any bugs in our new EPos and webstore and got all the stock loaded into the databases (nearly there!).

Of course, throughout all this change our Gloucester Pet Shop has remained open in Hucclecote, serving the surrounding areas of Brockworth, Churchdown, Abbeymead, Abbeydale, Matson, Coney Hill, Barnwood and Upton. We are also easily accessible from further afield like Cheltenham and Stroud. We have a large FREE carpark and we are conveniently located on a major bus route out of town so please do pop in if you haven’t already.

gloucester pet shop

Angell Pets 5 star rated Gloucester Pet Shop celebrates 10 years serving the local community nex month, so watch out for some celbratory offers coming soon.

Gloucester Pet Shop 10 Years Old

Way back in 2009 I was coming to the end of my martial arts teaching career due a combination of injury and wear and tear. I was looking for something I could do as a career that did not involve working for someone else. I had had enough of that with previous employers and had been spoilt by being self employed as an electrician (which I hated) and a martial arts instructor (which I loved). It was whilst out delivering leaflets for my martial arts academy in Tewkesbury that I noticed that just about every every house (near enough) had some sign of animals. This one had a barking dog, that one had a cat flap, this one had a load of bird feeders, that one had a rabbit hutch. One even had a sign saying “beware of the snakes”! I have kept a huge range of animals throughout my life, have an honours degree in biology and have lectured on various courses on relevant subjects so even I was able to put two and two together and the idea of Angell Pets took form. I had no funding, no knowledge of how to start such as business or where to locate it but you don’t become a martial arts instructor unless you are quite driven. Within a few weeks I had resolved all the problems I could think of and formed a company and our Gloucester pet shop was born.

gloucester pet shop
We’ve had venus 10 years this year too.

I borrowed a lot of money against an old endowment policy I’d had for years, and incorporated the company on 23/06/09. We then found a suitable property close to home in Abbeymead, purchased all the shelving, tills and everything else you need for a shop, sourced suppliers, enrolled on the courses needed to obtain a licence, commissioned a website and jumped right in. The whole process, from forming the company to opening the doors of our first Gloucester pet shop took just under 6 months and we finally opened on 17th of December 2009.

gloucester pet shop

We stayed in our first shop in Mead Road for the next five years. Over that time we introduced new services such as free home delivery, a webstore, a new information website, an offers email list and our Facebook page. Despite being launched during a double dip recession, the business thrived and grew every month. Unfortunately, when the lease came up for renewal the landlord wanted the property back for themselves and we had to look for a new location quite quickly. We thought we had found a good new spot at the quays and managed to move the entire business across in only two days! (although there was a couple of months of late nights preparing the new premises and decorating the old).

Unfortunately we did not take into account the stupidity of Gloucester City Council who, at the behest of the Quays development and against the wishes of smaller local businesses, decided to close the local carpark and promptly killed our business overnight. This happened 6 months after we moved in and cut our takings in half. We were tied into a lease for a minimum of 3 years so spent the next 2 1/2 years just scraping by. If it hadn’t been for the launch of our boarding service we would have gone under. Thanks Gloucester City Council.

As soon as we were able to get out of our lease (not cheaply, it cost thousands) we did and found our current property in Hucclecote. The move was not so easy this time. Both properties needed a lot of very expensive works. The Hucclecote site was an old Barclays branch and their contractors wrecked the inside of the building taking out their kit, plus maintenance of the building had not been kept up. They also left behind the vault door which alone cost a few thousand to remove. Worse was the work we had to do on the old property. In order to implement the break clause in our lease we had to carry out a lot of remedial work. Every piece of wood had to be glossed, every wall emulsioned, every piece of flooring replaced (3000 sq ft), shutters that had not been touched in the the 20 years before we got there serviced, the roof cleared of years of debris and repaired where it had been damaged from people going up there without permission (now you know why I was annoyed when the rugby painting on the cafe next door was put up without any consultation with us – it cost me £450 in repairs). Unfortunately most of this work was a complete waste of time and money. We knew, even as we were carrying out the works that the new tenants were going to rip most of it out and sure enough, one week after moving I looked in to see half the new flooring pulled up and stacked ready to go to the tip.

Gloucester pet shop

It was whilst carrying out the remedial works (fitting the carpet tiles that are now buried in the ground at the landfill site) that I injured my spine. This is what was responsible for us having to stop our free local delivery service, I can no longer walk too well and lifting anything is out of the question. I managed to keep it going during the move, when we were operating from a storage unit but had no option but to cease it when, whilst painting a piece of skirting in the new shop I was unable to get up because my legs were too weak. After finally going to the doctors I have been diagnosed with a reasonably serious condition that is not going to improve. I also became quite ill last summer so Billie stepped up and has been running the company since, doing all the work that at one point we had six staff (including myself) doing. George has also been helping out when he can and even Albert stepped in during a break in his studies.

However, despite all the problems with recessions, leases, idiot councillors and illness lining up to hold us back, we have made it to 10 years of our Gloucester pet shop and are still going strong. To mark this anniversary we will be having lots of offers on between now and December in celebration. This will be in additon to, not instead of, our regular monthly deals we already offer. Ever since we opened we have made sure even our usual prices have remained competitive and with all the offers coming up, there will be some real bargains. Like our Facebook page or sign up to our email list to be kept up to date with the latest bargain.

So visit us in our Gloucester pet shop at Glenville Parade in Hucclectoe. Lots of FREE parking and right on the number 10 bus route.

The Angell Pets Team

Angell Pets involvement in overseas conservation

We take animal welfare seriously at Angell Pets We follow the top industry standards with our own animals and give our customers the best available advice and information so they can do the same. We also have contributed to animal conservation and welfare at other establishments and around the world. Our staff have worked on a projects locally with the Gloucester Wildlife Trust, across the UK, such as encouraging the re-introduction of otters to Birmingham and for the last few years at various locations around the world.

angell pets conservation

Africa Nature Reserve

George Angell (familiar in the shop to many of our customers) left the UK to help with work on Assumption and Aldabra for SIF (Seychelles Island Federation). Having worked on Rhino conservation in Africa during university, he was keen to get involved as soon as possible. Initially landing on Mahe – the main island in the Seychelles, George worked for a few months on supporting Black Parrot conservation. This work was a long term project, continuing after George left that was recently declared a success. He moved on from Mahe to the main focus of his work on the Seychelles controlled Atolls of Adabra and Assumption. These islands are so remote, even from the Seychelles islands themselves, that travel there is not possible all year round, so George contributed to the Mahe project whilst waiting for transport to be available.

 

angell pets conservation

Mahe

angell pets conservation

Mahe

Aldabra is a world heritage site and as such is an important and therefore protected environment. Invasive species of birds had made it at least as far as Assumption Island (40 km from the coral atoll of Aldabra) and an E.U. funded project was in place to remove these birds before they got to Aldabra (and to check how many may have already have got there and remove them).

George left to assist with the removal of these birds, helping to protect this important and unique habitat. He also did his own research for his dissertation toward his higher degree on the work he will be involved in.

Aldabra and Assumption are extremely remote islands in the middle of the Indian ocean. Situated  1100km south west from the main Seychelles Islands, Assumption is only 11 square kilometres. The only population are the scientists George is joining who go by boat to study Aldabra and support staff who maintain the landing strip. He was not be able to get there until October as travel is not possible from the Seychelles island of Mahe until then.

Below is an extract from the project brief outlining why the work was important and what it was trying to achieve and George’s part in it.

Under the European Commission’s (EC) Thematic Programme for Environment and Sustainable Management of Natural Resources, including Energy, the Seychelles Islands Foundation (SIF) is implementing a 4-year project entitled “Mainstreaming the management of invasive alien species to preserve the ecological integrity and enhance the resilience of Seychelles World Heritage Sites” (‘the Action’) which started in February 2011. The overall objective of the Action is to develop and implement a strategic programme applying the ecosystem approach to limit the spread and reduce the impact of invasive alien species (IAS) in Seychelles’ World Heritage Sites (WHS). The Action is being coordinated and implemented by SIF, in partnership with the Seychelles Environment Department (ED) and National Parks Authority (SNPA), and with project associates Islands Development Company (IDC) and Island Conservation Society (ICS).

Under the project’s specific objectives, an eradication of avian IAS from Assumption of the Red-Whiskered Bulbul Pycnonotus jocosus and the Madagascar Fody, Foudia madagascariensis is underway. Until recently, Aldabra was thought to be the largest island in the world with no introduced avian species but in 2012 both the Assumption introduced species have been observed in the eastern part of Aldabra. These species have long been considered the most severe threat to Aldabra’s avifauna, making their eradication an immediate conservation priority. SIF is therefore running two parallel bird eradications on these adjacent islands. Due to the unexpected invasion on Aldabra , more staff are being recruited to help ensure the success of these eradications.

Georges specific role in this project was as follows.

1. Eradication of all introduced birds from Assumption and Aldabra

2. Improved understanding of avian IAS ecology on Assumption and Aldabra

3. Continued trial of alternative eradication methods for invasive avian species

4. Elimination of the threat of avian invasive species to Aldabra’s ecosystem and outstanding universal values

5. Recommendations for restoration of avian fauna on Assumption

George’ duties also included catching their own food (to quote the organiser – “hope you like fish and rice”) and there were lots of opportunities to see the local marine life (he had invested in prescription scuba goggles). Fortunately he didn’t get to see some of it too closely (sharks, venomous snails, fish etc.) and got to meet the famous Aldabran Giant Tortoise  very up close and personal. Assumption has an air strip that has to be cleared of tortoises before supply planes can land and so they are not all as friendly as those on Aldabra. George can vouch for that having been chased by “Terry” who’s head came up to Georges hip! He also made a trip across the island to an abandoned unfinished hotel where he had to construct barriers across the door ways to try to keep the robber crabs (giant land crabs) out of the gear – they steal everything!

angell pets conservation

Fishing for dinner on Assumption

This, as you can imagine, was a sort after placement and George had to interview and compete to get the post. We were very pleased to be involved in such a globally important project and wish the team still on the islands every success in their continued efforts to protect our environment.

After completing his term on the SIF projects George returned to the UK to complete his  honours degree gaining a first. During this period he worked in the shop at weekends, providing our customers with the benefit of his growing knowledge base.

On completion of his degree he again looked about for conservation work around the world. There were a number of competing projects looked at, from  the Antarctic to the Galapagos. In the end he opted for New Zealand.

angell pets conservation

New Zealand Office

New Zealand is a group of islands with an endemic population of flora and fauna This means the animals and plants of New Zealand are found there and no where else in the world.

angell pets conservation

Walking The Trails

As these species have evolved in isolation, they are vulnerable to the introduction of invasive competing or predatory species from outside the islands. Since man has reached the islands there has been a decline of endemic species, from the now extinct Moa (a large flightless bird, hunted to extinction by the newly arrived Maori people) to the endangered Kiwis and Kakapo (smaller flightless birds, brought close to extinction by predators introduced by European settlers to control the rats and mice they had already accidently introduced from their ships and initial supplies). George was to become involved in the control and/or eradication of some of these invaders, such as the Australian brush tailed Possum, the European stoat, ferret and weasel to name but a few.

angell pets conservation

Time Off

He spent three years working towards the stated aim of New Zealand to become predator free by 2050 (with a couple of months out to train vultures in Spain to fly with tourist on paragliders!) As a falconer, he also captured, trained and released two Autralasian Swamp Harriers during his stay, being amongst a mere handful of people in the world licensed to do this.

angell pets conservation

Vulture

After three years of this work George has returned to the UK where he is using his expertise to train upcoming animal carers, handlers and perhaps future conservationists at a college in Oxford. At the same time he is working for us back in the shop in Hucclecote on Saturdays where our customers can benefit from his knowledge and experience. We are very happy that Angell Pets staff are so involved in the promotion of animal welfare at such a range of levels, from giving advice on dog food to protecting some of the worlds most endangered species in the most hands on way possible.

angell pets conservation

Working Hard

angell pets conservation

Back Working In The Shop

So there it is. Just a little background on just one of the Angell Pets staff members. Perhaps I’ll do another log at some point on the relevant experience of the rest of us one day.

The Angell Pets Team

George Angell Back At Angell Pets

Unfortunately my spinal condition and associated complications has me currently disabled and unable to work and practically housebound. For the last month or two Billie has been running the business on her own carrying out all the shop duties (ordering, unloading deliveries and stocking shelves, serving customers, answering the phone, feeding, watering and cleaning all the animals, cleaning the shop, opening and closing etc.) as well as all the back office duties (banking, stock control, website management, supplier issues, finance, answering customer emails and social media enquiries etc.).

This month her brother, George, has returned from New Zealand and has agreed to help out by giving up his Saturday and a couple of evenings a week to take off some of the pressure.

Pet shop gloucester

Not only is this good news for us because of the extra pair of hands but we couldn’t have asked for a more qualified, experienced, expert person to step into the breach.

George has a first degree honours in Animal Science from UWE. During this study he won two awards, including top student. He has worked in the UK with a very wide variety of animals both his own and with a professional animal breeder and flown a variety of birds of prey. He has worked on a rhino reserve in South Africa, tracked king cobras in the Thai jungle (where he broke his collar bone – he always pushes things to the limit!), swam with whale sharks (but didn’t check his camera was charged) and worked on black parrot conservation on Mahe in the Seychelles and the Madagascan Fody on Assumption Island in the Indian Ocean during a year off from his degree.

He lived in New Zealand for three years (at one point working on “Mount Doom” from the Lord of The Rings – his “office”) and twice nearly fell off cliffs! He has been working on the conservation of New Zealand’s endemic fauna including Kiwis, Keas, Kakapo, Tuatara etc. and has worked with the Australasian Swamp Harrier, being one of the few people licensed to fly these birds in the world. He even took a few months out to train vultures for a new business venture in Spain. He recently returned to the UK to take up a full time post at an Oxford college to look after and expand their animal collection and to teach students in the handling and husbandry of these animals including reptiles and amphibians, mammals and birds.

So if you wish to buy an animal from people who really do have the qualifications, experience and expertise to give you the best advice on how to set up an animal’s enclosure and look after it for its lifetime, buying and keeping it in tip top condition; you will not find a team that can compete with Angell Pets. Our range of animals and products covers just about any animal suitable to be kept in captivity and extends to wild birds and wild animals and livestock such as chickens and ducks, goats and horses.

We hope you pop in and see us and once I get all this treatment out of the way I will be back too.

The Angell Pets Team