Animals miss zoo visitors - 29th May 2020

This zoo is in the US. Now, the zoo has no visitors. The animals are missing them.

American zoos closed on 14th March. Only the zoo workers come to the zoo. They look after the animals. The workers wear safety masks.

Lisa Ruggiero works at the zoo. She says the animals are OK with the masks.

Lisa Ruggiero: They did look at us a little funny, but we still have them on but we've had them on for over a month now so they don't really seem to care, they hear our voice and they know it's us."

The zoo is very old. It opened in 1872. There are usually lots of visitors. The animals like the visitors. The children talk to them and feed them.

Jennifer Hennessy has a job at the zoo. She talks about the situation.

Jennifer Hennessy: I feel like they are really missing the visitors as well as all the staff. There's some perks for some of the animals, the tortoise gets to walk wherever she wants to go, she is hiding in the bushes over there, but overall we just really miss our public and visitors.