Zoo to welcome back visitors on weekend

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This article was published 29/01/2021 (1910 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It won’t just be visitors to the Assiniboine Park Zoo who will have to stay physically distanced when it reopens on Saturday.

Staying apart is a problem for tigers, too.

“Our felines especially are susceptible to COVID-19, and other institutions have had some challenges with their tigers, particularly, acquiring COVID-19,” said Bruce Keats, chief operating officer of the Assiniboine Park Conservancy. “So we just are making sure the physical distancing requirements are the same between human-to-human and human-to-animal.”

Visitors will be required to stand farther away from the exhibits and each other to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission. The zoo has had to close twice, first in March and again in mid-November.

Keats said the conservancy has been in “continual contact” with public health officials, who gave it the green light to open last week.

Indoor exhibits will remain closed. Masks will be required at the entrance, gift shop and washrooms. Their use outdoors is “encouraged.”

The decision to reopen was not made lightly, Keats said. In May, the reopening of the zoo was delayed more than a week after the province loosened pandemic restrictions.

Zoo officials will monitor COVID-19 numbers in the province but Keats said he hopes visitors will be able to take go to the zoo as part of their outdoor winter activity.

“It’s an amazing, wonderful, safe outdoor space that Winnipeggers in particular can come out and enjoy, and feel safe in doing so,” he said.

“And then experience the wonders of nature between being able to interact with our animals in our human care, and give them something different from what they’re currently used to.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: malakabas_