Chester Zoo is set to reopen its doors next month and there are plenty of cute baby animals to see.

After a challenging year for Chester Zoo, the news from Boris Johnson last week that means outdoor attractions such as zoos and theme parks can reopen from April 12th was welcomed.

And over the course of lockdown, there has been a baby boom in the zoo too!

There’s everything to see from tree frogs to penguin chicks and rare baby lemurs.

Chester Zoo/Facebook

Of some of the smallest to see are 12cm long baby Mongoose triplets that were born back in May last year.

Chester Zoo

Even smaller, a pair of Eastern Pygmy Marmosets were born in December measuring just two inches long at the time.

The babies are part of the most miniature primate species on Earth and are normally found in the rainforests of western Brazil, south-eastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador and eastern Peru.

Chester Zoo

Some of the largest species at the zoo saw new additions, like the birth of a rare baby rhino. The birth of the Eastern Black Rhino was celebrated globally as fewer than 1,000 remain on the planet.

Chester Zoo

You’ll also find baby penguins born at the start of lockdown last year, plus baby Great Green Macaw Parrot chicks that hatched back in April 2020.

These colourful birds live in the lowland forests of Central and South America with a global population estimated at fewer than 2,500.

In March last year, twin ring-tailed lemurs were born to parents Fiona and Dog.

Rare Mexican frogs were born at Chester Zoo in September – the first of their kind born in a European zoo.

As part of a successful breeding programme, 100 Mexican Leaf Frogs hatched at the zoo after keepers recreated the scorching conditions of their natural environment.

Chester Zoo

A critically endangered Western chimpanzee was born by 43-year-old Mandy in August at Chester Zoo. Normally found in West Africa, there are as few as 18,000 Western chimpanzees remaining in the wild.

It’s also the first subspecies of chimpanzee to be added to the list of critically endangered apes, making this birth vital to the future of the subspecies.

Chester Zoo

A critically endangered Bornean orangutan was born in October, a surprise to keepers as mum Leia had a negative pregnancy test just a few months prior.

Estimates suggest fewer than 55,000 Bornean orangutans remain on the island of Borneo in Indonesia, the only place you can find them in the wild.

Earlier last month, Chester Zoo bosses revealed that the zoo is losing £1.7m a month, totalling to £11.5m in losses if the zoo can reopen on April 12th.

With the details of the ‘roadmap out of lockdown’ revealed yesterday by the prime minister, non-essential retail has been given the chance to start planning its reopening.

Non-essential retailers can reopen during the second stage of restriction easing, which will happen no earlier than April 12th.

Retailers which don’t sell ‘essential’ items have been closed since January 4th, and were only able to open sporadically throughout last year.

If the data let’s stage two go ahead on its planned date, then the high street should once again come to life on Monday April 12th.

Gerald England / Geograph

That includes Primark, who has now confirmed that it will be opening stores on April 12th if the government allows it.

A Primark spokesperson told The Sun: “Primark welcomes the news that we have a provisional opening date of April 12th for our stores in England.

“We know our customers will be thrilled and we can’t wait to welcome them back into our stores.

“Our priority will be to do that safely, building on all the lessons we have learnt across our European operations in the past year.”

Joining Primark in reopening on the 12th will be John Lewis, Dunelm, H&M and JD Sport, who all plan to let customers enter stores on the first day it is allowed.

A mental health nurse and his daughter developed a family-friendly fantasy game to have a fun break from homeschooling, and the product is now worth £125,000.

Eight-year-old Cora Hughes and dad, Dan from Huddersfield first began developing the game at the start of Covid back in spring 2020, at the kitchen table between home school lessons. 

CoraQuest is a family-friendly dungeon game that sees heroes fight their way through quests, rescuing people and collecting treasures along the way. It features the likes of Wizard Woman, Crossbow Dude, Sword Girl, as well as a host of grumpy goblins, gremlins and orcs. 

Dan shared the game on Facebook and eventually Gary King, a professional artist, got involved, colouring the pictures that Cora drew.

The post gathered big support and children added their own drawings, making Dan realise it could be a game others could enjoy. 

Dan told Yorkshire Live: “Within weeks the project snowballed.

“Videos and play-testing happened online and over twenty kids from Britain, the USA, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Canada and Australia contributed artwork which has now been made into gorgeous looking prototypes.

“When the game launched on Kickstarter on February 1st, it unexpectedly smashed through its £12,060 target in 45 minutes and has gone from strength to strength.

“Now Cora and I are now looking forward to getting the game manufactured later this year.”

Cora said: “Dad got bored of learning about the Romans every day, so we did something different.

“We wanted to make a dungeon crawling game we could both enjoy. And then we realised that it was actually really good so we started to make it into a real board game.

“We really want it to be a fun thing for families to be part of creating themselves, so we’ve set it up so you can create your own characters and artwork, or you can play with ours straight out of the box.”

Dan added: “It all just started as a bit of a fun home learning project- some creative writing, a bit about probability with dice rolls, lots of art and a bit of IT.

“A friend, Gary King, made a joke box cover on Facebook in August and since then the whole thing has just gathered pace with loads of people jumping in wanting to be part of it. 

“As we began receiving kids’ drawings of monsters and putting them up on our gallery, they were just so adorable.

“I’m not a soppy man, but to feel the support and enthusiasm of the community supporting us in this very special way, my heart is pretty much exploding.”

The pair are super excited about the opportunities creating CoraQuest will bring.

Cora said: “I can’t believe it! It’s amazing. I can’t believe so many people want to play our game.”