Sir David Attenborough is raising £12 million to save London Zoo from ‘extinction’

Sir David Attenborough has stepped in to save London Zoo from closure creating an appeal to raise £12m. 

Everybody’s favourite TV personality and naturalist is at the front of a campaign that is aiming to raise £12m of a £25m rescue package to save the 18,000 animals at London Zoo. 

The famous London Zoo is ‘at risk of extinction’ after being closed for 12 weeks due to lockdown. Eight keepers have been living in a lodge at London Zoo in order to keep it afloat. 

Bosses have struggled, like at many other zoos, to keep up with the huge prices of the animal food bill, which costs £43,500 monthly according to The Times. 

London Zoo opened last week but the bosses say that they are still in ‘dire peril’ due to social distancing rules limiting the capacity of the zoo to a fifth of its normal capacity.

Sir David said: “What happens if you can’t raise the money to keep the animals? What happens if you can’t afford the food? Are we supposed to put them down?

“The immediate prospect of the zoo going financially bust is too awful to think of. Are we, or are we not, a civilised community that it can’t support a zoo?”

The zoo has claimed it is facing the worst crisis it has ever seen since its opening in 1847. The coronavirus lockdown is the second time London Zoo has closed, the first being the Second World War which saw it close the gates for just two weeks.

The Zoological Society of London, a charity who owns the zoo and the zoo in Whipsnade, Bedfordshire, said they lost a whopping £8.5million in profit over the Easter and May holidays due to closure. 

The ZSL’s conservation work is vital and could be jeopardised if funds are not raised urgently. 

The zoo is not eligible for a government bailout and bosses would be unable to repay interest costs on a business interruption scheme loan. 

The charity works with the government to tackle animal rights issues such as the illegal wildlife trade and simultaneously carries out research on diseases transmitted from animals to humans. It’s conservation work also helps to protect endangered species. 

Keepers at the zoo also say that animals have struggled with the lack of human interaction during the lockdown.

Sir David has said it would be a ‘scandal’ if the country can’t support London Zoo which was the first scientific zoo in the world. 

Sir David Attenborough’s career launched after he directed the Zoo Quest series on BBC at the London Zoo.

He said in his appeal: “There are three times as many people living on Earth as when I was collecting those animals. So the natural world has been overtaken by humanity and in the course of that we have denied space for a lot of animals.”

The zoo keepers at London Zoo currently take care of 16 species that are extinct in the wild, plus an additional 42 critically endangered species.

Once it is safe to release animals into their natural habitats, the zoo does so. 

Donate to London Zoo here.