When the visitors at the Bronx Zoo disappeared this spring, the animals took notice.
In particular, the bears, giraffes and gelada monkeys have realized humans have largely been absent in the past few months since the zoo shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, zoo director Jim Breheny told Newsday in a podcast interview Friday.
Now, the presence of zoo staff actually piques the animals’ interest.
“Animals notice the lack of people. All the animals here are totally habituated to people and crowds and, you know, just kind of accepted them as part of the landscape and really for the most part...did not react to people one way or another,” Breheny said. As zoo staff tended to the animals during the city’s PAUSE, “we find that the animals would actually stop what they're doing and look at us because all of a sudden it was novel to have somebody there watching them,” he said.
Humans are welcomed to return to the Bronx Zoo, the city’s three other Wildlife Conservation Society zoos and the New York Aquarium in Coney Island starting July 24th, with preview days for members scheduled for the week before.
In addition to the Bronx Zoo, the zoos in Prospect Park, Central Park, and Queens are slated to reopen. The aquarium will have a new exhibit called "Spineless" that the WCS said “features invertebrate marine species including octopus, squid, jellyfish, and other animals that demonstrate the diversity of species found in New York waters and the oceans around the world.”
Some policy changes include ticket sales, which have to be booked for specific dates and times online, since no tickets will be sold on-site. The Bronx Zoo will have three entry times for 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. while the other parks will have hourly entry times. Visitors over the age of 3 and staff must all wear masks at all the facilities. The New York Times reported that each facility will be limited to a third of its maximum occupancy with visitors and employees.
The Bronx Zoo’s Free Wednesdays will resume on July 29th and require advance ticketing online. Healthcare workers will also get free admission with proof of employment and using the code HERO2020 when booking online.
In the absence of human foot traffic throughout the pandemic, songbirds, great white egrets and ducklings have taken over the Bronx Zoo’s pathways -- “we are a kind of a wildlife waystation for animals that migrate through, especially birds,” Breheny told Newsday. “It's a much more wild natural place now, because we haven't had visitors here.”
The zoo’s gorillas in particular have missed humans and have actually changed their behavior since the pandemic shut down the zoo to visitors.
“This is the first time in the last 20 years that we've actually seen the gorillas spend time way in the back of the exhibit, because there's no public there to interest them. There's no public in there for them to watch so they don't spend time by the viewing glass,” Breheny said. “They’re back out towards the back of the exhibit, which is actually kind of neat.”
And rest assured -- the zoo’s big cats who tested positive for COVID-19 have all recovered, including Nadia the Malayan tiger.
Nadia the Malayan Tiger
“We were surprised when we found out that several of the big cats were positive for COVID because we did not anticipate that ... some of the people who were caring for the big cats would be able to unwittingly pass the virus to them,” Breheny said. Nadia was not ill for long -- “as a matter of fact she had very mild mild symptoms that didn't last long,” he said.
With the return of humans, Breheny said the Bronx Zoo’s balance is restored.
“There’s never been a time that we went through the spring and the summer season without visitors and it was just so strange,” he said. “The one thing that's been missing for these four months is people, is the visitors. And it's kind of crazy but this was our realization for us, that the zoo’s really not the zoo without people, without the community.”
