Chester Zoo Chester Zoo closing for 2 days due to heatwave

[Zoo2022]

Nothing to do with Chester, but this appears to be just north of Hamerton.
Six fire engines scramble to Sawtry fire after extreme heat scorches field
From what I can see after talking to locals, that (contrary to the headline) the problem appears to be the lack of rain for several months (as in 1976), not so much the heat - as there was a similar fire last week near the A1 well before the hot days, which did not even get a mention in the press.

 

[North Entrance]

It has been announced that Chester Zoo will be closed Monday 18th and Tuesday 19th July due to the extreme heatwave and safely for the staff, visitors and animals.

The zoo will reopen as normal again Wednesday 20th July.

If anybody has pre-booked any tickets booked for those days, then your ticket will automatically be extended until July 2023.

Stay safe, cool and hydrated.

I visited London Zoo on Monday 18th July, a really good visit and, I can confirm that London's 'staff, visitors, animals & plants' were all perfectly fine. I have to say to Chester WHY close ????

 

[North Entrance]

Last night, I was thinking of going up this morning for a two day visit, but decided against it. ZSL has said some of it's exhibits may not be open due to the predicted heat.

I visited London Zoo on Monday 18th July, a really good visit and, I can confirm that London's 'staff, visitors, animals & plants' were all perfectly fine. All was open except, the butterfly house, the upstairs 'rainforest' part of the Clore and the Squirrel Monkey walk-through.

 

[North Entrance]

Well to all the scoffers, I'm sad to report per the BBC that a dozen animals have died of heat related stress and over 300 were moved to another zoo for safe keeping in France, following a fire breaking out.

Sadly cannot provide the link but it is on the page about temperatures moving north.

Perhaps you will acknowledge there were very good reasons to close Chester, after all, and that comparisons to 1976 are wholly invalid.

That was a sustained dry period with high temperatures not a record heat wave lasting a few days but causing major issues.

I see there are large blazes outside London now. I hope all firefighters and emergency personnel are safe.

Keep healthy people and hopefully this unpleasant spell will pass soon. Probably be flash floods next as the ground will be baked solid.

Your first mistake.... believing a word from the biased BBC!

 

[Rajang21]

Your first mistake.... believing a word from the biased BBC!

What a daft thing to say…especially when the sad story of the zoo animals dying in France was reported widely. It’s not as if the BBC made up the story to justify Chester closing for two days.

 

[Zoo2022]

What a daft thing to say…especially when the sad story of the zoo animals dying in France was reported widely. It’s not as if the BBC made up the story to justify Chester closing for two days.

I thin it was perhaps the reporting of the dead animals and evacuation due to fires on the Chester and UK thread, rather than the French one; which confused things...

 

[North Entrance]

What a daft thing to say…especially when the sad story of the zoo animals dying in France was reported widely. It’s not as if the BBC made up the story to justify Chester closing for two days.

Wildfires near to a French Zoo and Chester Zoo closing for two days are not related. London Zoo was open, there were fires in Southern England too but London didn’t sacrifice any of their collection (animals or plants) by admitting guests! I had a great day at London Zoo on Monday whilst Chester put two fingers up to their customers. Do you honestly believe that any of Chester’s plants or animals would have died if open to visitors on Monday & Tuesday?

 

[Indlovu]

I had a great day at London Zoo on Monday whilst Chester put two fingers up to their customers. Do you honestly believe that any of Chester’s plants or animals would have died if open to visitors on Monday & Tuesday?

No, but there was a red weather warning for extreme heat from the Met Office, and, per the warning statement: “illness may occur among the fit and healthy, and not just in high-risk groups”. So concern would predominantly be for staff and visitors:

• Chester’s Director of Collections was interviewed by various broadcast news channels and spoke about the closure enabling staff to work more flexible hours (e.g. start early and finish early before the worst of the afternoon heat).
• I suspect the possibility of a member of the public being taken ill and subsequently taking legal action against the Zoo for not taking sufficient safety measures will have been a concern.

As for the BBC bias comment, that’s just tin foil hat silliness in this context.

 

[Zoo2022]

No, but there was a red weather warning for extreme heat from the Met Office, and, per the warning statement: “illness may occur among the fit and healthy, and not just in high-risk groups”. So concern would predominantly be for staff and visitors:

• Chester’s Director of Collections was interviewed by various broadcast news channels and spoke about the closure enabling staff to work more flexible hours (e.g. start early and finish early before the worst of the afternoon heat).
• I suspect the possibility of a member of the public being taken ill and subsequently taking legal action against the Zoo for not taking sufficient safety measures will have been a concern.

As for the BBC bias comment, that’s just tin foil hat silliness in this context.

The red area did not include Chester and the north-west.
It did include London.

 

[Crowthorne]

Looks like it was in the Red Zone according to the Met Office map (screenshot from forecast here: Cheshire set to break local hottest temperature record again)

 

[North Entrance]

The red area did not include Chester and the north-west.
It did include London.

thank you, sanity at last. I’m sure Mr. Mottershead wouldn’t have closed the zoo due to a Weather warning in place for a different part of the country! In fact he remained open during risk of air raids, he had a shelter in the Oakfield basement. London Zoo on Monday had shelter in the form of something called shade and free chilled water at all outlets for visitors. I think some zoochatters have forgotten that many of the animals are from and are adapted to hotter climes. In London, all the Australian, African and South American animals were probably more at ease than in the depths of a British Winter! If Chester wanted to give staff time off, so be it BUT, I’d have thought it’d have been better for them not to abandon the animals in this alleged ‘crisis’. The Chester web site made so much mention of plants too! No idea how visitors on a hot day would impact on well-being of plants!
Let’s draw a line under this conversation and return to normal Chester chat. Let’s face it, Chester has become so big and commercial now that a spreadsheet decision was taken on casual staff and anticipated receipts … cheaper to close for 2 days, not anything to do with the well-being of their plants!

 

[lintworm]

hank you, sanity at last. I’m sure Mr. Mottershead wouldn’t have closed the zoo due to a Weather warning in place for a different part of the country!

If you conveniently ignore the picture @Crowthorne added because it contradicts what you want to hear then yes, keep believing your own story.

n London, all the Australian, African and South American animals were probably more at ease than in the depths of a British Winter!

You would be surprised.... 39 degrees celsius is extremely hot, even for tropical species. In fact the maximum recorded temperature in Singapore and Nairobi EVER is 35 degrees celsius. Maximum recorded temperatures for other tropical locations like Jakarta, Manaus and Sao Paulo are also lower than 39. In arid (sub-)tropical areas temperatures of 40 degrees or higher might be regular, but that really is the minority of species. An addax would be fine, a Sumatran tiger much less so.

Edit: In addition enclosures in the UK for tropical species are adapted so the species can be kept in winter, by offering heated indoor enclosures etc. Enclosures are much less adapted to extreme heat, so it won't have been fun for most animals. In the tropics too, animal activity peaks early morning and late afternoon and even species well adapted to the heat, will hide during the middle of the day or stay cool in another way. So visitors would not have seen many active animals anyway...

 

[Zoo2022]

thank you, sanity at last. I’m sure Mr. Mottershead wouldn’t have closed the zoo due to a Weather warning in place for a different part of the country! In fact he remained open during risk of air raids, he had a shelter in the Oakfield basement. London Zoo on Monday had shelter in the form of something called shade and free chilled water at all outlets for visitors. I think some zoochatters have forgotten that many of the animals are from and are adapted to hotter climes. In London, all the Australian, African and South American animals were probably more at ease than in the depths of a British Winter! If Chester wanted to give staff time off, so be it BUT, I’d have thought it’d have been better for them not to abandon the animals in this alleged ‘crisis’. The Chester web site made so much mention of plants too! No idea how visitors on a hot day would impact on well-being of plants!
Let’s draw a line under this conversation and return to normal Chester chat. Let’s face it, Chester has become so big and commercial now that a spreadsheet decision was taken on casual staff and anticipated receipts … cheaper to close for 2 days, not anything to do with the well-being of their plants!

Yes, even though Chester was just inside the red area on the Met Office map shown, which it wasnt on the app I was shown on the day; it is very likely that central London had higher forecasts and actuals than did the north-west.
Your final comment on Chester's size and the decision being actually a 'spreadsheet' one based on casual staff and income cost balance, spun as an animal/public welfare one - is probably very close to the truth.

 

[taun]

thank you, sanity at last. I’m sure Mr. Mottershead wouldn’t have closed the zoo due to a Weather warning in place for a different part of the country! In fact he remained open during risk of air raids, he had a shelter in the Oakfield basement. London Zoo on Monday had shelter in the form of something called shade and free chilled water at all outlets for visitors. I think some zoochatters have forgotten that many of the animals are from and are adapted to hotter climes. In London, all the Australian, African and South American animals were probably more at ease than in the depths of a British Winter! If Chester wanted to give staff time off, so be it BUT, I’d have thought it’d have been better for them not to abandon the animals in this alleged ‘crisis’. The Chester web site made so much mention of plants too! No idea how visitors on a hot day would impact on well-being of plants!
Let’s draw a line under this conversation and return to normal Chester chat. Let’s face it, Chester has become so big and commercial now that a spreadsheet decision was taken on casual staff and anticipated receipts … cheaper to close for 2 days, not anything to do with the well-being of their plants!

What a weird debate stumble upon, even if they decided to close due to costs (still a sensible decision, esp if likely to lose money opening on those days). Flintshire nearby broke record for temperate, Chester was unbearable at 4pm in the afternoon, I couldn't stand that heat, and struggled with short work to my car to get home. Even my own animals was struggling with that heat.

A good zoo needs to be financial savvy otherwise it would soon run out and close.

Chester never gets such extreme temperatures, London is more used to 30 plus than Chester!

 

[North Entrance]

If you conveniently ignore the picture @Crowthorne added because it contradicts what you want to hear then yes, keep believing your own story.

Here’s what the Met Office prediction map looked like when Chester made their closure decision…’case closed Your Honour!’

 

[Maguari]

Here’s the map as published by the Met Office when Chester made the decision to close… View attachment 560363

I'm not so convinced that a map on which you can't even see Chester is very helpful to anyone's cause.

I also don't really understand the vitriol here. The zoo closed for two days. It re-opened again. It was probably for multiple reasons but they kept it simple in a press release and stayed out of economics (if they were part of the decision), which is not exactly unusual behaviour for any organisation.

I'm not sure what more there is to say.

 

[TeaLovingDave]

Here’s the map as published by the Met Office when Chester made the decision to close…

A map which - given the fact the location of Chester is entirely obscured by a big red block of text labelling Manchester - is entirely useless for the purpose of demonstrating what warning zone the city was placed in, no matter who is actually correct

 

[Zoo2022]

A map which - given the fact the location of Chester is entirely obscured by a big red block of text labelling Manchester - is entirely useless for the purpose of demonstrating what warning zone the city was placed in, no matter who is actually correct

Clearly whatever the argument about maps, most zoos within the red zones did not close. They probably didnt need to, as the public made its own decision.
I think the broader point was that it was the message put out, that it is not safe to visit it the zoo if it is hot, is a step backwards along with it not being safe to visit the zoo if it is windy. 24 hours after this we were (where I live), in a yellow warning for flash floods, and there was not one spot of rain all day in a clear sky.
If this coloured map system determines whether or not it is safe for the British public to leave the house, and zoo visiting is to be determined by the MetOffice (who clearly are right sometimes, but quite wrong just as often) then there will be precious few days left in the year to do anything...

 

[littleRedPanda]

Mike Jordan (?) from Chester Zoo was on sky news about 8:50 this morning if you want to hear his side of the story. Go the youtube live feed and scroll back to see it while you can.

 

[gentle lemur]

The decision was made, rightly or wrongly, depending on your point of view. I am sure that it was debated within the management team beforehand and that that debate continued afterwards, as it has done here. It is unlikely that exactly the same circumstances will be repeated in the near future, but if similar circumstances do occur this experience should be informative and important for all concerned.
Further discussion after the fact seems irrelevant now, but I wonder how Chester and other zoos can plan to avoid or ameliorate similar conditions in the future.