Here's What Animals Are Up to While They Wait for Their Wildlife Center to Reopen

Wildwood houses around 1,450 animals, representing 82 species. While the Trust’s specialty is in species native to Britain—smaller critters like dormice and red squirrels—it also has bigger predators like bison, wolves, lynx and bears. (Many larger predators, like lynx and bears, were once native to Britain, but were hunted out of extinction by the Middle Ages.)

It’s not cheap to keep all these animals happy and healthy. The Trust spends more than $15,000 per week on food alone. The zoo has said it lost five months of revenue when it was forced to close last year, creating a hole in its finances. The group is looking to raise $660,000 in donations to help address the shortfall.

Wildwood isn’t just a place where people can come for a visit with a dormouse (as adorable as that is). The charity, dubbed a center for excellence in conservation research in 1999, also does conservation work on endangered species native to Britain, like the red squirrel. That work, too, was halted by the pandemic. The Trust said that many animal reintroductions originally planned for 2020 have been put on hold.

Rewilding has taken on increasing importance not just in the UK but around the world as conservationists and policymakers look to restore the balance of ecosystems disturbed by human activities and climate change. Last year, for example, conservationists reintroduced Tasmanian devils to the Australian mainland in an effort to help ecosystems there as well as the devils, which have been ravaged by a deadly transmissible cancer in Tasmania. Protecting nature could also help us avoid future pandemics and the spread of zoonotic diseases.

It’s not just Wildwood that’s experiencing the financial pinch of having to care for animals without visitors. Zoos, aquariums, and conservation parks around the world have experienced devastating financial setbacks over the past year. These institutions balance the massive cost of caring for animals with admission fees, donations and memberships, all of which were affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Oakland Zoo in California laid off 100 employees last summer as visitor attendance—which accounts for 90% of the zoo’s revenue—plummeted. The Chester Zoo in the UK said last month it had suffered a nearly $14-million loss since the pandemic began and was forced to put many of its conservation projects on hold.

The UK government last year opened a fund to support zoos, aquariums, and other conservation centers during the pandemic. But it placed a stipulation that to receive funding, institutions must have less than 3 months of financial reserves to be eligible for support. That left out many centers like Wildwood Kent. Zoo industry associations have urged the government to lift restrictions for the funds.

“Like many organizations, we have experienced major financial losses during the pandemic, but unlike many others, we are unable to furlough many of our staff because of our commitment to animal welfare and husbandry, whether we are open or closed to the public,” six British zoos wrote in a letter to the government this week.