Saving our Zoo w/ Dr Mark Pilgrim

This week my guest is CEO of Chester Zoo, Dr Mark Pilgrim. If you’ve been following the news for the last few weeks you’ll know that until the 9th of June 2020, zoos and safari parks around the UK had a very uncertain future. Chester Zoo in particular was highlighted as one that may never be able to open if the lockdown restrictions were extended for much longer, and launched a fundraising campaign to fill the multimillion pound hole in its finances caused by being closed for over 3 months.. For those of you who don’t know of Chester Zoo; where I’m from in the North West of England you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t visit Chester Zoo at some point in their childhood. It’s the most visited wildlife attraction in the UK, with over 2m visitors in 2019. Consistently ranked as one of the top zoos on the planet, for its high welfare animal care, the wide open landscapes and its hugely successful conservation efforts around the world. For me, it’s Our Zoo. It’s where I came as a kid with my family, with friends for birthday parties, brought my wife on dates before we were married and a place my kids know intimately. The prospect of Chester Zoo no longer existing would be heartbreaking. So we reached out to them to see if we could give them a bit of publicity, and were blown away that Mark was willing to come on and talk to us. In between booking and recording the podcast, it was announced that zoos and safari parks could reopen on the 15th of June - the day Mark and I recorded this conversation, so it’s all very fresh and raw, and by no means are they out of the woods yet. Support Chester Zoo by heading to chesterzoo.org/supportus or buy donating to their JustGiving page here. This episode is sponsored by UTC Events. Head over to utcevents.co.uk/techservices today to see how UTC can help your podcast. -- If you'd like to support Sod's Law you can become a Sod's Law patron at patreon.com/sodspod from as little as £1 /$1 a month - there are different tiers including ad-free episodes, giveaways and more!