Long-term effects of COVID-19 economic downturn on zoos

I'm afraid it has to be. The Bronx Zoo was once sued by a young couple who was given one of those flattened commemorative pennies for their child. When the child swallowed said coin, and the metals began a caustic reaction in his stomach, a great deal of medical care was required. The couple eventually sued the zoo for handing out something that they assumed to be safe. Now, of course, this sounds ridiculous, since the zoo clearly meant for the coin to be held, which was safe, and not to be ingested. Despite this logic, this was not a slam-dunk easy case for the zoo; they actually settled privately giving significant damages to the family.

If you extrapolate this seemingly-small incident and amplify it to the point of whether it's safe to be in the zoo during a pandemic, there becomes a much bigger possibility of people contracting the virus and turning around to the zoo saying effectively, "You opened! How could you open if it wasn't safe?" We all know it could probably be made safe, if everyone wore masks, gloves, and maintained social-distancing, but these measures are all up to visitors to do. Keeping people from spreading infection and preventing crippling lawsuits will be key; I think zoos will have to have strict protocols visitors must follow when there, and I would feel much better for our zoos if they made visitors sign something waiving any right to sue if they become infected.

 

Bonkers! I question what the parents where doing, surely they accepted responsibility by taking the coin. Now if the coin was in food and kid ate the food there is more a case to answer. Some people need to take responsibility for their own actions.

Its like them having to put "this cape does not give you ability to fly" on superman capes...only in America! (it seems).

I find the whole thing ridiculous.

 

Miss-quoting me doesn't help your argument.

I gave the examples to counter your insistence that none of this could be done, which is not true. Similarly, I wasn't saying any foreign model could or would be copied - although your dismissal of what is being done abroad is again wrong, as clearly everyone is looking at what is happening and being done in countries further on in he the cycle.

A limit could be perfectly straightforward. Simply, if you haven't bought a ticket up front you don't get in - it works on an aeroplane or in a theater. Trust wouldn't need to come into it.

Neither was I saying we didnt have to be patient - clearly that is the one thing we all do have to be.

 

I agree! But if that's what our litigious society has become, wouldn't you hope for zoos to protect themselves against ruinous liability lawsuits?

 

Where have I miss-quoted you?

 

A topic not mentioned is breeding programmes. Few zoos will be actively breeding animals for at least the next year. And long-distance transfers will be cancelled this year. What could be the long term impacts?

 

I agree with this.

But it still remains my opinion that small and medium zoos (at least in countries were they are not subsidised) are already highly efficient, in addition to being considerable contributors to the economy be it in employment, taxation, education, leisure etc. All of this is independent of the actual animals. The amount they would need to over-come the current short and medium term crisis to be there for society on the other side is really quite modest.

I can understand why Governments and the public would be reluctant to bank-roll some of the larger zoos at the expense of the public. The profligacy of some larger institutions both in the amounts they spend on 'exhibits' and the amounts they pay some of their staff, especially in the USA, but also in most other developed countries has always been an embarrassment, and it will make defending them quite difficult now. But even then the figures are low compared to theme parks, sports and many other leisure activities (as pointed out by Tim Brown) - including many funded/subsidised from the public purse either directly or via the National Lottery which has increased its funding massively recently, but only for those projects it has supported before.

Not all zoos, salaries, and exhibits are the same. Investment in the smaller Parks as venues and resources for the public into the medium term, could be a very efficient use of a tiny amount of public funds - and avoid all the political, legal, safety, emotional and animal welfare issues of closing them.

All we can do is to continue with the day-to-day, defend our position as best we can, and hope they will agree with us.

 

There is no reason for zoos to stop breeding animals. If you take into account pregnancy and then maturing the offspring, with most of the species you are well ahead in time when the travelling (at least for work related reasons) is allowed again. The only species that could be potentially affected by it are species with short life-span, short pregnancy and early sexual maturity...

 

The idea that people who contract the virus can sue zoos is flawed for one simple reason: there is no way to know where you contracted the virus. It takes several days between infection and symptoms so how can anyone possibly claim to know they contracted it by visiting such-and-such a zoo on such-and-such a day? Even in the United States, which has a genuine problem with frivolous lawsuits, this is a non-issue in my opinion.

I actually like the idea expressed above of limiting ticket sales to a set number of pre-purchased tickets, allowing of course for members to visit as they please. In fact a good way to do a "soft re-opening" might be to start with letting members in only.

One potentially positive outcome from all this could be the banning of school field trips. Let me state that I actually like kids (unlike some of my friends), I like them a lot, but I have had more than one zoo trip negatively affected by large school groups.

 

First paragraph, I agree with completely.
Second one, might have to work a little differently. I think a number of zero priced 'members' tickets could be built into the daily ticket allocation, but the majority will have to be full priced. The financial loss to zoos is already in the hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars/euros even for the small ones, and they will have to charge for limited entry, even if they would prefer not to. We might also have to accept that in the elitist times of reduced ticket availability, that entry prices will have to go up significantly to help compensate for the losses.
School trips were already reducing every year, here by probably around 10% per annum. You are right, this might end them completely. We already hear that in the UK even when the schools re-open, over a quarter of parents will refuse to send their children to school, such has been the success of the stay-at-home-or-you-will-die media campaign by our Government

 

I think it will be quite awhile before there will be any school groups in our zoos, because I think the public schools will be one of the very last places to open up, followed only by movies, concerts, and sports events. Even in the latter stages of reopening, masks and social distancing will be required, and especially small children really can't be relied upon not to fidget with masks, and there simply isn't enough room in schoolrooms for there to be the kind of social distancing that's necessary. The education of public school children is one of the biggest, if not biggest, problems our governors face with this pandemic; the same problems face child-care providers, who are a huge part of the public-school equation.

Zoos have so much peril right now that I certainly hope you are right. However, "frivolous" lawsuits got their name for a reason, and with mortality at stake with this issue, there may be many who earnestly believe they've been infected in a zoo and don't find the outcome frivolous at all. And I, for one, am an example who really could pinpoint pretty closely when/where I could get the virus, because I haven't been out more often than once every three days, and those have only been for medical reasons. The utter lack of traffic around here suggests that most people are really isolating. We're all assuming in this thread that people will be so elated to see zoos open that they will be inundated with ticket sales. Given what I see in my general area, people are much more aware of the virus's dangers than they once were and are mighty likely to approach venturing out cautiously.

 

We're not actually... I agree with you. Prior to closure our visitor numbers were only around a third of what they should have been, and that was before the mass media scare campaigns. We fully expect that on re-opening visitor numbers will be very low. The reason for our commissioning the ticket system is to convince the authorities that we have mechanisms in place to prevent huge visitation. I have just had an email from a friend in Germany to say that zoos in his area are re-opening next week. He is not a general zoo visitor but will visit Zoo Schwerin on Tuesday because he knows they need his money. It will be interesting to see what he finds...

 

Of course there is. More mouths to feed = more costs.

 

On top of this is the issue of space. Given the restrictions in interstate travel and cutback in commercial flights (how many animals are moved cross country in the U.S.), many transfers of animals will be difficult. Since it is so unreliable zoos need be prepared to hold onto animals longer than they may have planned. Obviously, this depends how long zoos foresee the closure being.

 

Just got an email from the Memphis Zoo offering a 20% discount on all zoo memberships from now until the first day they reopen, which is an unknown date at this time. They will also extend all current memberships by the number of days they are closed. I assume this is an attempt to generate some cash flow by borrowing against future income. I renewed and now am paid up thru the summer of 2022.

Little Rock Zoo is offering, until April 30, 2020, 2 months free on membership purchases (16.67% discount), and extending current memberships by 1 month.

I just wonder which other zoos are offering discounts like this to generate some cash flow.

 

I poked around a bit. The San Antonio Zoo is temporarily waiving the $20 deposit for the monthly membership. The annual membership seems to be discounted as well, though they don't say if it's because of the pandemic or not. (I assume it is)

 

The French government has announced aid of 19 million euros for zoos, circuses and shelters.

 

The banning field trip idea, while it might be necessary in the short run, would not be a good long term idea. I happen to know for my local zoo, educational programs are one-third of the revenue. While this is not all from field trips, they are a significant chunk of that. With that being said, enough schools and summer camps are shut down for this year that I cannot envision a problem with excessive field trips.

 

Perhaps more zoological facilities should threaten to permanently close down. Vancouver Aquarium raised more than $620,000 in donations in a little over a week! Exactly 8,207 individuals contributed money towards the aquarium and the plan now is to sustain that amount going forward.

Vancouver Aquarium raises a whopping $624k in just over a week - BC News