RARE species such as cheetahs and black rhinos will be seen roaming through replicas of their natural habitats under a £50m plan for the animal equivalent of the Eden Project.

The 132-acre attraction is planned as an attempt to move away from animals in cages or chilly fields seen in traditional British zoos and safari parks.

Instead, visitors will take jeep rides to view big cats and rhinos in an African savannah zone, or rock pythons and giant millipedes in a recreation of the Congolese jungle.

Other exhibits will include a Central American swamp house, where visitors will walk through lush tropical vegetation and around pools, viewing animals such as the manatee, a rare underwater mammal never before seen in Britain.

The project’s backers at Bristol Zoo claim that it will be the first time a visitor attraction has tried to show how different animals live together in the wild rather than exhibiting them as separate species.

“We are reinventing the concept of what a zoo is,” said Jo Gipps, director of Bristol Zoo Gardens. “Many zoos have not made the conceptual leap. They have tinkered, but what you really want to do is take it all away and start again.”

It is proposed that the zoo, provisionally called the National Wildlife Conservation Park, will be built in the grounds of a country mansion north of Bristol. It will include 12 separate zones, some outdoors and others inside. Each section will be based on a particular location identified by experts sent by the zoo to scout suitable environments around the world.

The African savannah site, for example, will be based on the Tarangire national park in Tanzania and will be recreated on fields overlooking the Bristol Channel. Many of the plants and trees used will be grown from seeds collected on the Tanzanian plains.

Zebras, warthogs and giraffes will live alongside the rhinos in the savannah zone. Although the big cats and other predators will appear to be mingling with the other animals, they will be kept apart by carefully placed ditches.

Elevated walkways will enable visitors to walk out to watering holes and view the animals at close range.

A ranger station will house smaller reptile, amphibian and invertebrate species. “Rangers” — trained members of staff — will have visited the locations in the wild and will be on hand to give details about the animals and the conservation work the zoo will be carrying out.

“It (the African savannah site) won’t be cod Africa with round Masai huts. This will be based on a real site and, where possible, we want people to see only what they would see in the wild,” said Gipps.

Some concessions will be made to the British climate. In the winter, animals in outdoor habitats such as the savannah will be housed in heated buildings and some delicate trees and plants will be covered to protect against frost.

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