Tropical Butterfly House & Wildlife Centre

Tropical Butterfly House Wildlife Conservation Park is a family-run attraction in South Yorkshire with over 142 species to discover from around the world.

Set in glorious green surroundings, the park offers fun for all the family and the chance to experience the sensational sights, sounds and smells of an indoor tropical rainforest!

Our Story

The Butterfly House opened on shoestring on 23 March 1994, with just a butterfly house, nature wildlife trail and a small shop and café. It’s 4.5 acres was home to 3 employees, butterflies, peacocks, a tarantula spider and a snake followed by barn owls, an eagle owl and later in its first season, goats and chickens. Discovering in that very first year that the key to future success could be allowing our visitors to handle and get closer to the animals they love, this very same ethos remains our USP today.

We became licensed as a zoo in 1994 and are now renowned for our collection of exotic animals from around the world including many endangered species. We offer visitors daily up-close animal encounters alongside views of the best of British wildlife.

The site has increased to 8 acres of parkland and our visitor numbers have grown to over 150,000 per annum in 2018. Our small, dedicated team of staff work hard to help connect people with the animals, and in this way are helping to promote and conserve the natural world around us and beyond.

Alongside fundraising endeavours for worldwide endangered species, closer to home the park is an oasis for native wildlife. The purpose-built pond environments have attracted the likes of the great crested newt, the common newt, frog and toad a well as grass snakes. With over 150 nest boxes on site the park is also a refuge for a variety of birds including the tree sparrow, a red data species, which has successfully seen one breeding pair in 1998 grow to forty pairs last spring.

We’re also bringing wildlife closer to home. Did you know a % of your admission goes towards helping us preserve native species across the region – so every visit is helping local wildlife too!

Our 3 conservation sites in Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire cover 46.5 acres of land not open to the public, but with a sole aim to protect and manage native habitats and species – that’s everything from butterflies and bees, flowers and insects, wild birds, various mammals and even red deer!

We partner with wildlife charities and organisations to help protect endangered species from around the world. With a simple wristband purchase from our gift shop, you help us raise vital funds to save some of the world’s most vulnerable animals and their natural habitats – from parrots, vultures and crocodiles to the humble hedgehog!

We also support 2 in-situ sustainable butterfly farming and conservation fairtrade projects in the Philippines and Costa Rica. Each project supports local communities and enables them to breed butterflies in order to receive a sustainable income.

The farmers take part in reforestation projects where they restore the natural surrounding vegetation but also encourage butterflies to breed. They will harvest some of the butterfly chrysalis they produce and then group together to send them across to us every month.

In addition, our PURO Fairtrade coffee sales have led to the purchase and protection of over 4.98 acres of rainforest – that’s over 13,239 trees!

We promote conservation, learning and fun and welcome schools and groups and offer accessible facilities.

Kim Bellis, managing director and the owner’s daughter has spent all her life here at the park and reflects: “As a family business we are all very proud of what the team have achieved here over the last 3 decades. The legacy of my dad’s labour of love brings it back to where it all began, inspiring the next generation’s passion for nature. Now following the success of the park, he is now able to return to his passion for plants and animals and enjoy all the new challenges our wildlife conservation sites will bring.”