Cheyenne Mountain Zoo looks to breed hippos for first time in 30 years
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Officially back open for business, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is working hard to keep the public and their employees safe.
Rachel Wright Communications Director with Cheyenne Mountain Zoo said, “We’ve got signs throughout the zoo, we also have a safety officer that makes rounds through the zoo throughout the day just to make sure everyone has the resources they need, change some things so they don’t have scheduled animal demonstrations just to sort of prevent those large crowds from gathering.”
Because of Covid, the Zoo said they have had to completely revamp their ticketing system making it online only.
Wright said, "We are doing 20-minute windows of admissions, so that allows us to help control how many people are coming into the zoo at once and kind of encourage that social distancing and it’s been working really well so far.”
But even with social distancing measures in place, the animals are excited to see human faces once again. New to the zoo are a 2-year-old giraffe, a baby mountain lion (which has not been photographed yet), and a male hippo named Biko, who will prove to be very important because for the first time in 30 years, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo will try to breed these awesome creatures.
Jeremy Dillon, Animal Care Manager, said, “So being able to breed hippos here is really important to us because hippos can be kind of costly to keep and because of the water systems and everything and so a lot of zoos are getting out of that. So we want to be able to provide one of those avenues to be able to keep hippos in, and people love seeing hippos.”
And although they can’t do everything they once did before because of Covid-19 restrictions, Wright says the admissions from being back open will help so much moving forward.
“We need those admissions to keep going to keep being able to do things like provide a home for that mountain lion kitten or contribute millions of dollars to conservation,” said Wright.
And if you are planning to go to the zoo, Wright says day-of tickets are hard to come by, so it’s best to book ahead. You can book those tickets by clicking here. In an effort to allow more people more time in the zoo they have added an hour to the end of each day.
