Ailing ARTIS is forced to say goodbye to its three lions, says director Rembrandt Sutorius on Thursday. The Telegraph. Due to the corona crisis, the zoo has no money to build a new lion enclosure and so they will move to a park in the south of France in mid-February.
“The decision to let go of the lions is a very painful decision,” said Sutorius, who is concerned about ARTIS ‘financial situation. “We opened our doors in 1838 and have had lions here since 1839. Those predators are part of our identity.”
According to the zoo director, the old lion enclosure was way ahead of its time when it opened in 1927. “But if you stand there now, you wish the animals a better and larger enclosure and we cannot offer that in the coming years.”
The park cannot afford the four million euros that a new shelter for the animals has to cost. “Maybe it can be in three or five years, but it could also take another ten years before we can realize it. It doesn’t mean that we will never have lions again,” says Sutorius.
ARTIS previously announced that it would be forced to cut 20 to 40 jobs. As a result of the corona crisis, the Amsterdam zoo is losing millions. Director Sutorius foresees a shortfall of twenty million euros in the coming years. “It costs 60,000 euros to run ARTIS for a day and we have run out of savings.”
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