Del Boy or Custard Cream? Capybara pups to be named

People are being asked to suggest names for eight capybara pups that were born on the Isle of Man five weeks ago.

The manager at Curraghs Wildlife Park said naming animals helped people "identify" with them and "care about what is happening to them in the wild".

Kathleen Graham said the five boys and three girls would be named around four themes, either Manx place names, South American names, biscuit names or Only Fools and Horses characters.

Graham said the latter was just for "fun", "we all love biscuits", and "with it being the year of the Manx language, we thought Manx place names would be good or even the south American names as capybaras are from there".

Graham said it was very important for bonds to form, especially when you are talking about species conservation.

"Capybaras in themselves are not endangered, however animals that share the habitat with them are and so through donations, raised for the capybara, we have been able to donate from our conservation funds towards projects like tapirs," she said.

"People connect when they know an individual animal and they are then more likely to care about what is happening to them in the wild."

The arrival of the pups has prompted the Isle of Man attraction to extend its opening hours.

The park would usually reduce its opening hours during the colder months to four days a week, but has retained its longer summer schedule to give people more chance to see the new arrivals.

Graham said the pups had "proven to be quite popular" with visitors and visitor numbers for 2026 are expected to increase to more than 50,000.

Once the animals are bigger the park will look to re-introduce the capybara experience where people can interact with them, she said.

Since the announcement of the eight pups on the island, other places in the UK like Edinburgh Zoo and Hertfordshire Zoo have announced their own arrival of pups.

Graham said while these rodents were "not managed at a high level" like red pandas or humble penguins, the zoos coordinated to ensure there was a good population.

"Together we coordinated a few moves and that is why people will notice quite a few zoos in the UK have announced capybara pups around the same time, but the Isle of Man has the biggest number with eight."

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