TAMPA, Fla. — Among the places planning to reopen soon are ZooTampa, featuring all its animals.
It has been closed since March because of the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, but leaders say they have approval from city and county officials to reopen.
CEO Joe Couceiro says the impact of being shut down to the public for this long is "tremendous."
"We were able to then keep a limited operations team on board of about 75 people and at that point, we initiated some furloughs of people who were not essential to those operations," he explained.
He said they were having a good month but had to close doors at their busiest time of the year. While the zoo has been shut down, staff has still been caring for all 1,100 of their animals, which isn’t cheap
"The bottom line is we need to earn our keep in order to keep operating," he said.
So they’ve put together a thorough plan that would allow them to reopen June 1.
But when people come back—you can expect a lot of changes to keep people safe.
Among a long list of new rules: They would only operate at 50 percent of “comfortable capacity” and only allow indoor venues to fill up to 25 percent capacity. They also plan to enforce social distancing.
Stations will be set up to check peoples’ temperatures at the entrance and give employees personal protective equipment.
And like everyone else who is slowly and cautiously reopening, Couceiro says things will be different for the foreseeable future
"It’s not business as usual, it’s a new beginning," he said.
You can read about the zoo's full plan to reopen and learn how to donate here: https://zootampa.org/
RELATED: ZooTampa plans to reopen by June 1
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