Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Kids go wild as zoos open gates again
ANIMAL lovers told of their joy as Chester Zoo opened for the first time since March yesterday.
The UK’S biggest visitor attraction outside London is sold out for the next month, after the future of its 35,000 animals came under threat when it suffered huge lockdown losses.
A public appeal has raised over £2.5million but what staff wanted more than anything was to see children enjoying seeing the animals again.
Ewa Dryglewska, 26, who works at the penguin pool, said: “I believe the animals are excited too.”
Bank manager Kerri Flowerday, 32, from Hawarden, North Wales, watched the elephants with her 11-month-old daughter Imogen.
She said: “It should have opened weeks ago.” Post Office worker Steph Crone, 34, of Liverpool, took along daughter Ellie, six. She said:
“Ellie was so excited to be coming back she was up at 10pm last night thinking it was already the morning. Everyone is just so happy to be out in the fresh air in a safe environment.”
The zoo usually has 12,000 visitors a day during the summer and had a record two million last year but it is now limiting numbers to 3,000 a day and bosses say it has a “£5million hole in its finances”.
The zoo had only closed twice previously in its 89-year history – once for the Second World War and once for foot and mouth – and CEO Jamie Christon said: “It feels like a historic moment.” London Zoo also had long queues yesterday. Living Coasts has become the first UK zoo to close permanently due to Covid-19. It opened in 2003 in Torquay, Devon, but faced “substantial” maintenance costs. It hopes to rehouse animals.