Zoos in Wales are suffering as ‘virus means no visitors’
Welsh zoos have been left ‘hugely frustrated’ that they still cannot open as their English counterparts get ready to reopen their gates to summer visitors. Laura Clements reports
TIM Morphew was pleased to see Prime Minister Boris Johnson announce that zoos and safari parks can reopen in England from next week.
But the zoo curator at Folly Farm, Pembrokeshire, is frustrated because similar measures have not yet been introduced in Wales.
The financial situation, he said, is getting desperate, with next to zero income.
Ahead of Mr Johnson’s announcement yesterday, social media channels went into overdrive and Folly Farm was inundated with inquiries from people all over the country, said Mr Morphew.
The popular farm park and zoo has been working overtime while its gates remain shut in order to create a “Covid-secure” environment, but still needs more guidance from the Welsh Government.
“It’s frustrating for us,” said Mr Morphew. “And it’s confusing for the public, because social media has no country boundaries.
“People are reading about England zoos opening up and we’ve been inundated with people phoning up and emailing us, asking if we’re open now, which is pretty frustrating for us and pretty frustrating for them.
“Quite frankly, we still don’t really know when we can open under Welsh Government guidance.”
The park desperately needs a busy summer season to make up for what would have been a bumper Easter holiday and early spring season.
Speaking in April, managing director Chris Ebsworth predicted the summer would be “pivotal” for the fortunes of Folly Farm. With £60,000 going out every month just to feed the animals, the park can ill-afford to remain shut all summer.
“It would be nice to think that we may get some of the summer but it’s all going to depend on Government guidelines really,” added Mr Morphew.
During yesterday’s press briefing, Ken Skates, the Welsh economy minister, said there was no set date for when zoos in Wales could open, but that he hoped it would be “sooner rather than later”.
Mr Skates said 60% of people in Wales were still too scared to leave their own homes and that it was imperative that confidence was restored before attractions were reopened.
But Mr Morphew said Folly Farm was capable of opening with social distancing measures in place and had been meticulously planning this for weeks.
“We’re pretty confident we can open,” he explained. “It would be at a reduced scale, obviously, but we can open in a Covid-secure manner where public health would not be at risk.
“Our site is outdoors and we’ve put a huge amount of effort into it with booking schemes ready to go where we can limit people numbers through the park, barriers and oneway systems in place and screens up for our sales staff.”
Even if it meant limiting visitors to just local people, it would be a huge boost, said Mr Morphew.
“It would be something. At the moment we’ve got next to zero income, which is worrying when you’ve got £60,000 going out every month. Just local trade would help.
“Everyone has been hugely supportive on social media. Everyone was ecstatic when they heard English zoos could open and they thought they’d be able to visit us too.
“When it’s safe, when we’re ready, we will open the doors and let people back in, in a controlled way,” he promised.
Mr Skates said the Welsh Government was “determined to do everything we can” to help the 30 licensed zoos across Wales.
A spokesman for Folly Farm said: “We’re aware we were never on the Welsh Government’s closed businesses list, but we’ve been effectively closed by lockdown first and now the five-mile travel guidance.
“We’re confident we can offer a safe, managed outdoor space, and we know from our loyal visitors there is the desire to return, but whilst the five-mile travel guidance is in place it makes it very hard for any attraction to trade.”
Chester Zoo has been given the all-clear to reopen after closure during lockdown left it facing several million pounds of debt.
There are fears many zoos and animal sanctuaries would be bankrupted if the shutdown extended into the summer months.
Speaking about the UK Government’s
U-turn decision to reopen zoos, Mr Skates said Wales has “never legislated to keep zoos closed”.
He said they have not been prevented from reopening in Wales, but the biggest challenge will be “attracting people through the gates”.
The Welsh Mountain Zoo, overlooking Colwyn Bay, in north Wales, said it was “tremendous news” for England but said it was suffering “extreme financial damage” as the Welsh rules prevented it from reopening.
Yesterday, a spokesman said: “We still find ourselves unable to reopen. People in Wales can only travel within five miles of their home and visiting an attraction such as ourselves is not permitted in that travel.”
I DID the damage in a quiet corner of the upstairs bar of a workingmen’s club that had somehow survived into the new century.
There was no-one to bother me as I read the newspapers accumulated on the speckled yellow, blue and red Formica tables. Formica had been posh, the latest trend when I was growing up. That and green leatherette banquettes. They still had those too, and they still had the Ronettes on the jukebox.
Nobody tried to talk to me. I ate a ham roll to see if the bread was still like pap and the meat a slick of piggy plastic. Tasted good to me. I had another to try to fool the alcohol. No fooling. I walked to where the river had once encircled the town’s early ironworks and the covered-in canal had once sent the barges to the sea.
At the Old Bridge I took in, as if for the first time, that unity of hills and river which the makers of this town had managed to disassemble with every unplanned decision they had ever taken.
The late afternoon light was being pin-pricked by car headlamps. I hoped my last intended watering hole would not have been dried up by the dessication of fashion and youth.
I needn’t have worried. The squat stone drinking den was intact and, though spotlessly clean and daily swabbed, its interior was as it had looked for half a century. No music. No distractions, and an outside urinal whose basic floor and lime-washed walls would have made a Frenchman blush.
I sat on a wooden chair at a polished wood-and-iron rectangular table which was set beneath a mirror proclaiming Dewar’s whisky, and with the insignia VR. I don’t think the old girl had ever made it here. It had been a second home to my old man. I stayed as the lights went on against the fading afternoon, and silent drinkers drifted in and out. The rain was spattering against the windows again.
It was drumming inside me, too, a persistent beat of melancholy and uncertainty which the booze had only helped dig deeper.
When the barmaid began to give me a wondering glance just once too often for me to be misguided enough to consider it as admiration, I decided to move.
> The Crossing by Dai Smith is published by Parthian in the Modern Wales series www.parthianbooks.com