Chester Zoo
Ticket sales are vital for animal upkeep and conservation, zoos say. So is it time they reopen?
As countries around the world go into lockdown amid the Covid-19 pandemic, you can visit or enjoy tourist sites and places of interest from the safety of your home. To help cope with your self-isolation, famous places including Buckingham Palace, The Houses of Parliament and Disneyland are offering virtual tours, while the National Theatre in London is streaming plays every Thursday for free.
Twin ring-tailed lemurs have been born at Chester Zoo. The delightful duo arrived to seven-year-old mum Fiona following 135-day-long pregnancy and have been clinging tightly to her ever since. At just 15cm tall, the tiny twins are each no bigger than ‘tennis balls with tails’ and weigh just a few hundred grams.
We round up the week in good news stories, featuring baby red pandas, dogs in dinghies and pygmy goat pilates.
The birth of a critically-endangered West African chimpanzee caught visitors by surprise at Chester Zoo. The new baby, a female which is yet to be named, is in good health has been labelled a ‘vital boost’ to the conservation breeding programme for the rare apes by conservationists.
We have rounded up the week's best news stories, from the birth of the royal baby to happy cows jumping around in the sun after a long, dark winter.
Two rare radiated tortoises hatched at Chester Zoo are the first of their kind in seven years. The golf-ball-sized cuties are from a species that has been pushed to the edge of extinction in their home environment of Madagascar, with hunting, poaching and trading reducing their numbers by 30 million in 30 years. Their mum, 50-year-old Smoothsides, laid the eggs last October.
A landmark study on the endangered giant pangolin will help with the long-term protection of the species across Africa, scientists hope. Pangolins are the world's most trafficked mammal. The study was conducted in collaboration with the Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Rhino Fund Uganda.
More than £11,000 had been raised less than 24 hours after the blaze broke out.
Monkeys and exotic birds are among the animals housed in the affected area.