Cash-strapped zoos rethink financial strategies

Raising money

On the Colchester Zoo website, visitors can choose different ways to support the facility, such as adopting an animal, donating to the emergency fund, buying tickets in advance and shopping from the facility's online store.

The zoo also wants to raise additional funds, and to date has received more than 7,000 pounds from the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe.

A 5-year-old boy, who has vowed to support the zoo, has raised thousands of pounds for its animals.

Thomas Rose, who has visited the zoo every month since he was 8 months old, was devastated when it had to close. He decided that he wanted to help, his mother said.

To raise sufficient funding to feed every animal at the facility for a day, the boy ran a marathon over 12 days dressed as a lion, his favorite animal.

Before he turned 6 on Feb 20, he had raised over 11,000 pounds, more than his target of 10,000 pounds.

Goulet, the zoo owner in Canada, said he has used every possible government assistance program, including wage and rent subsidies. He has received a total of about C$240,000.

With restrictions eased in Ottawa and Hamilton, small groups are now allowed to visit Little Ray's Nature Centre.

The zoo has also launched live Zoom shows, although they have only provided 5 percent of the amount it used to earn from shows at schools and birthday parties.

Goulet said: "I'm happy we're open, so instead of losing C$80,000 a month we'll lose maybe C$60,000. It will curb our losses, but we're still losing money at a fast rate."

He turned to the public for help, with a fundraising campaign amassing nearly C$200,000 in donations from more than 2,000 people in just over a week.

Meanwhile, after a two-month lockdown last spring, Toronto Zoo authorized drive-through visits for about a month before customers were allowed back in, but with capacity sharply reduced.

In July, the zoo, which has about 5,000 animals, said it would only accept advance bookings from visitors, before reverting to drive-throughs in late November.

It has raised about C$1 million through its nonprofit arm for a program called Zoo Food For Life.

Although it closed again on Dec 26 when the provincial authorities in Ontario issued a stay-at-home order, Dolf DeJong, the zoo's CEO, told CTV News he remains cautiously optimistic and hopes that it can host visitors again next month.

"We'd like to think we can start rallying from the losses we incurred early in the year," he said.

In China, many zoos are also exploring diversified business models, such as developing animal science courses, designing cultural and creative products, and cultivating animal celebrities to raise more money for their inmates and to maintain normal operations.

In Jiangsu province, a cute but naughty monkey named Kai Sa has become a star at Nantong Forest Safari Park. Many loyal supporters have bought the zoo's annual membership card and visit it every weekend.

The safari park has also developed more than 20 interactive projects, such as pigeon-feeding, to encourage more visitors.

The trend of coming up with new ideas to raise money might give governments and owners the chance to rethink zoos' functions.

Chris Draper, a zoologist from the UK, told Forbes magazine that some zoos make valuable contributions to conservation, but he also argued that the industry as a whole is not held to sufficiently high standards and should be overhauled or strengthened.

He believes the "zoo model" is flawed and that high costs for running facilities leave little to spend on habitat conservation and also put animals' lives in jeopardy during a crisis.

Shen, from Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo, said modern zoos should no longer be places for visitors solely to see animals, but they should also carry out conservation education.

More important, zoos should continuously enrich the living conditions of wild animals, improve their welfare and achieve species continuity, he said.

Over the years, Hongshan Forest Zoo has become popular among animal lovers and has earned their respect for its professionalism and caring approach.

In return, their love and respect helped the zoo through tough times when it was unable to buy sufficient food for some animals who are particularly fussy about their diets.