Mr England, Vaughan Bailey, visited Twycross Zoo on Monday in his role as a celebrity ambassador for the Zoo. He was especially keen on his first visit to meet Ganesh – Vijay, with whom he shares a Birthday. Vaughan was excited to meet our elephant community, their keepers and to learn more about how we care for our elephants.

Vaughan helped feed the 15-month old youngster who already weights over 45 stone, with his favourite treats of grapes and bananas and watched as the elephant keepers washed Vijay and the rest of the 5-strong herd with and put them through their daily training programme of lifting their legs, stretching and lying down to order, which is designed to make it easier to give medical treatments.

“I’m really proud to be a Celebrity Ambassador for Twycross” said Vaughan, who recently won the ‘Personality’ category at the Manhunt International event for the world’s top male model in Taiwan. “I’ve always been fascinated by animals but this was the first time I’d ever fed an elephant; it was a brilliant feeling to have that trusting little Vijay very gently taking grapes from my hand with his trunk. He’s got the same birthday as me too – August 6th – so I felt an even closer bond with him.”

Twycross Zoo look forward to more visits from Mr England who will be presenting a series of short videos exploring the range of animals we have and learning more about them and their welfare.