We've got big plans for our 40th year in 2012 (see the events line-up on our What's on page), but you can be a part of the celebration. We're looking for children under 16 to design a part of our commemorative mosaic.

There'll be many winners due to the size of the mosaic, so get drawing and painting and send in your entries before 6 Jan 2012!

We'd like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you for all your tremendous support this year. Wishing you a wonderful 2012.

362 African rhinos have been poached in the first 10 months of 2011 - more than 3 times the number taken between 2000 and 2007. With this increasing threat to rhino populations we urgently need to ramp up the critical work we're currently undertaking in Zimbabwe to save these animals. Our appeal to Help us save rhinos aims to raise the vital funds required.

Watch our video to find out more and please give generously. We need money and we need it now before it’s too late.

Marwell Wildlife and the University of Portsmouth have joined forces to open the world’s first cognitive study centre for rare Sulawesi crested macaques.

The animals will be invited to operate computer touch screens allowing scientists to investigate fundamental aspects of their cognition such as memory, communication and emotion.

We've been working on the conservation pages of our website to keep you up to date with the work we do and how we allocate the generous funds you give us. Learn about a new toad population we have discovered in Tunisia, how we manage our woodlands sustainably via horse logging and restoration work as well as tracking carnivores in Africa's aridlands.

It is with great sadness that we have to announce the sudden and unexpected death of one of our snow leopard cubs. Kitana, who was six-months-old, began to show signs of illness on Wednesday December 14. The vet was called immediately, but her health deteriorated rapidly and we could not save her. She died just a few hours later. Post mortem results show that Kitana had suffered from an intestinal torsion, which proved to be fatal.

James Cretney, our Chief Executive said: “The death of Kitana is a great loss to everyone at Marwell Wildlife, especially our keepers and the veterinary team who have worked closely with the cubs over the last 6 months. Sadly, wild animals often hide their symptoms very well and she gave no obvious indication to keeping staff that she was unwell until Wednesday morning. Unfortunately the speed of deterioration made treatment impossible. With what we now know, any attempt at treatment would very likely have been unsuccessful.”

Kitana and her siblings Kamala and Kadhir were born in June and live with mum Irina and dad Indeever at the park.

View recent images from our Flickr group of the snow leopard cubs

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