SEA Life Adventure is set to become the new home for 21 monkeys who were rescued from an animal testing centre in Italy.

The Macaque monkeys, who would have been killed, are among a whole host of new animals making their way to the aquarium as plans are in the pipeline for further expansion to create new exhibits.

As its name suggests, the focus of the popular family attraction was once solely on creatures from the world’s waters, from fish and crocodiles to rockeries and tropical water plants.

More recently though, the attraction has expanded to accommodate land-dwelling animals.

Back in February of this year, Sea Life Adventure opened their WILD attraction, bringing in three Giant African Spurred tortoises and 20 Slender-Tailed meerkats from the Tropical Wings zoo in South Woodham Ferrers, which closed down.

Such has WILD’s popularity been, that Sea Life Adventure have now announced that it plans to expand further into the re-homing of animals that otherwise have nowhere to go.

Following on from the arrivals of the tortoises and meerkats earlier this year, the centrepiece of the second phase of their WILD expansion will be to bring in the 21 Macaque monkeys, which have been rescued from Italy.

The monkeys had been tattooed with ID numbers at an animal testing facility in Italy, and were set to be euthanised before Sea Life Adventure stepped in.

Sea Life Adventure has now applied to Southend Council for planning permission to add both indoor and outdoor enclosures, including a new home for the Macaque monkeys.

The application also includes plans to build a beach hut cafe, and an outdoor play-area for children.

Sea Life Adventure is owned by the Stockvale Group. Speaking about the attraction’s expansion, the group’s managing director, Marc Miller, said: “We’ve had a great reaction from the many visitors who have enjoyed exploring the first part of WILD when it opened back in February.

“As we said then, that was just the first of many exciting stages of development that will take place at Sea-Life throughout 2018.”

A third stage of development at Sea Life is to build an indoor tropical house, which will be the home to butterflies, birds, crocodiles and an array of new fish.