Chester Zoo reopens its gates to public after Covid lockdown

The award-winning animal attraction welcomed the first of what is expected to be thousands of visitors on Monday, April 12 – the first time the zoo has been allowed to have visitors since it was forced to shut to the public on January 4 as part of the Covid lockdown.

Chester Zoo welcomes back visitors for the first time in over three months.

Visitors said they were looking forward to seeing the baby animals, including baby giraffe Albert, who was born during the lockdown, and being able to head outside and enjoy seeing the animals once more.

It's an important step on the road back to normality for the zoo, which has lost £11.5 million over the past year as visitor income makes up the vast majority of its income.

Mr Christon said: "It costs £1.6 million every month to run this operation, so to be able to welcome back our 120,000 members, I am over the moon.

Jamie Christon, chief operating officer at Chester Zoo.

"Our staff are really pleased as well. It has been a long lockdown and hopefully today is a turning point and we won't end up having to close again in the future is there is another outbreak.

"The site looks absolutely fantastic – 20,000 mammals here and lots of staff ready to welcome our visitors here and make sure they are both Covid-secure and safe, and give them a really good day out.

"A massive thank you to the 120,000 members – they have kept by us all the way through during this rollercoaster 12-month period. Without them we couldn't have continued. We are welcoming them back today and we have got plenty of members tickets available over the next few weeks."

Critically endangered eastern black rhino calf, Kasulu, charges out alongside mum Ema Elsa at Chester Zoo.

There are a few changes in the zoo at present – some are new attractions, while other areas are currently inaccessible due to Covid restrictions.

As was the case when the zoo reopened after the first lockdown in June 2020, visitor numbers are capped to about 5,000 to ensure everyone can be socially distanced, while indoor attractions such as the aquarium and the recently restored Monsoon Forest are off limits for the time being. The Oakfield restaurant is closed indoors but is offering takeaway food, as are food and drink stalls around the zoo.

Mike Jordan, director of animals and plants at the zoo, explained the new highlights visitors could expect to see, including the Latin American wetland aviary featuring Caribbean flamingoes.

Mike Jordan, director of animals and plants at Chester Zoo, by the new Latin American wetland aviary.

He said: "Because it's spring, it's a sunny April day, it's just the best time to be in the zoo anyway – it always looks amazing!

"Certainly, the lemur walkthrough is looking fantastic and we have got baby lemurs in there, and there's four new species in there, in their separate enclosure, so that's a lovely area.

"We have built a huge new wetland aviary which now houses our flamingoes and a whole range of other birds from scarlet ibis to waterfowl, ducks, geese and some little wading birds too, so it's looking amazing. You get great views of that."

Rare okapi born during lockdown at Chester Zoo.

Unfortunately, the planned walk-through area for that attraction is not yet accessible to the public, due to another challenge the zoo has had to contend with in recent months – the avian flu outbreak, which recently hit a Cheshire farm.

As a result, Mr Jordan said, zoo staff who have been working very hard over the winter have had to be smart and wary coping with the Covid pandemic and the risks of avian flu.

He said: "It has been quite a difficult time; we have been worried about Covid in our own staff and worried about the possibility of losing a whole team to work by having to self-isolate.

"We have been trying to work smarter, by splitting teams into two, and that has put pressure on our staff, so they have had a very hard year.

Three-week-old Rothschild's giraffe calf Albert, born in lockdown, strides out at Chester Zoo.

"On top of that, our staff working with birds have had to cope with avian flu in the country, which means we have to segment all our bird aviaries into separate little farms and treat each one as a bio-secure unit.

"It also meant we couldn't even share Wellington boots or overalls we would normally share. Every member of staff has had to have a separate set for every area, so it has been a very tough time for our bird staff.

"But all the staff have worked incredibly hard to make sure the conditions for the animals are as good as they can be."

Mr Jordan added the absence of visitors to the zoo has had a little effect on the animals, some of whom may be a little "bolder", and behave like they would during an evening when the public have gone home for the day.

Last-minute preparations are made to the elephant enclosure before the reopening.

He added: "On the whole, a lot of our visitors are used to the public. Some of them probably miss them – the ones that interact a lot, right across the board, from penguins to great apes; you see them come across and interact with the visitors, they have missed that interaction.

"Albeit our keepers are here and working with them non-stop. There certainly haven't been any welfare issues and they will soon get used to having visitors back!

"And the new births, well they will get used to having a lot of visitors around and take a cue from their parents. If the giraffes are used to visitors then the new baby giraffe will almost immediately become used to them."

While the zoo has been able to reopen, it is still looking to recoup some of the money lost over the last year from the Government's Zoo Animals Fund.

However, due to the overly strict criteria set by the Government, currently only £5.5 million of the £100 million has been handed out to UK zoos and aquariums.

Chester Zoo CEO Jamie Christon said the zoo will keep lobbying, along with the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, to the Government for more attractions to be eligible to claim a share of the funding.

He said: "Just because we're open, doesn't mean that the need disappears. We've lost around £11.5 million over the last year at Chester.

"We will continue to lobby Government, especially Her Majesty's Treasury, to be able to release those funds to other zoos in England that desperately need it, to get them back on their feet."

The gates at Chester Zoo reopen for the first time since January.