A whole host of changes have been made to Chester Zoo ahead of its reopening to visitors.
In a message to the public, the zoo's chief operating officer Jamie Christon said staff have been busy making changes to how the zoo operates to ensure that visitors are able to be welcomed back safely when the government gives them the green light.
One of the first things visitors will notice is that the zoo looks different, and this is because teams have been working hard to install an array of new physical safety measures which include self-scanning ticket lanes, floor markings to clearly indicate two metre distances, multiple hand sanitisation points, a huge amount of signage and protective screens in all key locations and service areas.
And although the zoo is a huge 128 acre site, you’ll notice fewer people than before as the zoo plan to heavily limit visitor numbers each day and every single visitor, and member, must book online.
Jamie explained: "There are a raft of other things happening too. All our indoor animal habitats will remain closed, as will our restaurants and cafes, but our outdoor food and drink kiosks will be open and we’ve added more outdoor picnic areas, while lots of fully trained staff will be dotted around to ensure people keep well apart.
"Hard surfaces, such as touchscreen computers and cash machines, will be covered and out of use, and viewing windows will have one metre standoff markings around them, again to prevent touching. Stringent deep cleaning will also be ongoing," he added.
"There’s no hiding from the fact that these times are tough for us.
"Visitor revenue is absolutely critical; it makes up about 97% of our income. And unlike many other charities and organisations which are able to limit their outgoings, the zoo still has incredibly high costs to ensure that each and every one of the 35,000 animals here receives the exact same level of care and attention they are accustomed to.
"It costs £465K per month just to look after all of the animals and plants – that covers feed, bedding, the wages of the animal care staff, heating animal houses and much more besides. Being unable to open and welcome any guests at all for so long now means we’ve been having to do this with little coming in.
"We have, though, said many times throughout this crisis that we will beat this, we will bounce back and we won’t ever stop our fight to prevent extinction.
"As ever, we are incredibly grateful to all of our staff, our members, our visitors and our vast support network for helping to protect our fantastic organisation through this. Thank you. Thank you so, so much.
"Will a trip to Chester Zoo be the same as before? No. Will it still have that Chester Zoo magic? You bet it will!"
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