Re-opening of wildlife parks

[FernieB]

Posting here for traffic

Whilst the National Trust is able to open parks and gardens and anyone (seemingly in huge numbers) can visit a beach, the government has refused to allow Zoos and wildlife parks to open. This makes no sense as they are able to implement social distancing and offered pre-booked entry only just as the National Trust is doing.

Many of them now face closure and if they have to close they will be lost forever. Whatever you think about zoos they are a valuable educational resource and provide research into conservation and species.

I've contacted my MP to highlight this and I urge anyone else to do likewise.

metro.co.uk/2020/05/30/when-are-zoos-reopening-lockdown-measures-12779930/

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-52875282

I will write to my MP today.

Chester zoo which surely must be one of the most profitable ones in normal times is saying it may well have to close down. What will happen to the animals? Sadly I think a lot will be killed as other zoos won’t have the capacity or money either.

This is something I've been thinking about too. Also grown men can play a contact sport like football but kids aren't allowed to play in a play park.

I posted a thread about this yesterday, I think it's disgraceful that zoos have to resort to crowd funding to feed their animals.

I'm going to email my MP too

Given the places which can open, including non-essential shops indoors, this really doesn't make sense to me at all.

Surely it's relatively easy to maintain SD somewhere like that?

I hope they can open soon.

I was very surprised that safari parks where you drive through staying perfectly isolated within your car are still closed. I would have thought they could be among the first things to open.

I'm shocked too as these places can manage social distancing effectively. If the Govt isn't permitting them to open, they need to increase the funding surely.

Good idea, I didn't think about that but I'll email my mp too, we are close to Colchester zoo and we're really worried about our closing and have spoken about how ridiculous it is that they aren't allowed to reopen but other places are a few times now!

Hope that link works.
One Wildlife park said at the rate we are going they will be able to open their indoor shop before the outdoor park. They had planned to keep the shop closed.

Whatever your views are on zoos, these animals will surely die if they don't open soon

www.change.org/p/chester-zoo-save-our-conservation-zoos?recruiter=256064831&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=tap_basic_share&recruited_by_id=5b239250-cc2d-11e4-9398-7fd3e91955d0&utm_content=fht-22581808-en-gb%3Av2

I wonder if its the need for toilets to be open?

For those worried about their local zoo they could donate the price of the ticket they would usually purchase on a visit.

This is a very popular time of year for schools to visit zoos, last year my sons entire school went to a zoo. So with just one school that is around 300 people.

It will be the toilets, I imagine. They are high transmission places and you cannot have an attraction without toilets.

There’s a safari park near us that I was sure was going to be one of the first things to re open....you are literally sat in your own car driving round and looking at animals. The only contact is the pay point to get in.

But re: the toilets thing, a lot of parks and open spaces where we are have toilets open now anyway. So surely they can’t use that as an argument?

But the local council here have opened all the beach/seaside toilets.

The beach toilets are open and there is no limit on numbers. I do agree it seems bizzare, but then again indoor shopping etc is usually owned by rich doners to the Conservative Party.

I think its probably the issue with toilets and areas like picnic benches

Our local zoo was one of the last to close, and while its got a huge square footage people werent equally spread out throughout. They hold huge numbers of people so there were lots of people on picnic benches, and mostly people werent wandering round the endless grounds they were in big clumps surrounding the main exhibits. Im sure that the zoo could of held twice as many people if we socially distanced but we got there and saw big groups of kids scrambling over each other at things like the tigers, lots of people at the same windows, holding the same bars. We left because i was uncomfortable with it.

Lots of zoos dont have much space so might struggle with that too as lots of them have deliberate bottlenecks, rather equally spaced out things.

I’ve signed. Other places with public toilets are open - beaches, national trust type areas, woodland walks near us etc. If they can do it so can the zoos.

I think its probably the issue with toilets and areas like picnic benches

But plenty of other places have been allowed to open, which also have toilets and picnic benches. E.g. national trust gardens, beaches, parks

Surely if that's really the issue they can tape off the benches or any bottles necks (our zoo has none I can think of) or have a one way system. They could even close indoor exhibits.

It is definitely much easier to socially distance at a zoo, than inside Mark's and Spencer.

If it's purely down to Loo facilities, then how can they open a beach if the loos are shut?
How can they open a park? Or a NT place?

Once again it's something that a child would enjoy and it's not allowed to be open.

@onedayinthefuture
It is... odd isn't it. At first I thought it was a bit of a conspiracy theory but as time goes by there are far more places open which are frequented almost entirely by adults - gold courses, garden centres, clothing stores, national trust venues. Whereas anywhere child friendly is locked down and taped up, even if there is no good reason.

@UnderTheBus I don't get it and it makes me very sad.

Chester zoo post on Facebook yesterday lunchtime is heartbreaking. The costs are unbelievable. That's just one zoo. Millions.

It seems very wrong to keep them shut - our local one says they may now go bankrupt and are asking for fruit and vegetables to feed the animals as well as donations. They do so much good work for conservation charities around the world. Very easy to social distance. I'm sure they would be happy to open with online tickets and no cafe if those are the issues. Though when so many restrictions have been lifted and NT is allowed to open, beaches are allowed to open seems wrong. And if NT can have toilets why can't a zoo? Sure our zoo would open without toilets if required and many could still go for a shorter time as its local.