Fort, whose job is talking to people about animals, suddenly had no people to talk to. It was very interesting, Fort said of her experience during the lockdowns. I moved here right before it happened. We d planned out all of these programs and all that, and we couldn t do that because the zoo was closed. So it was very different.
Roughly 93% of the Memphis Zoo s $18 million in annual operating costs comes from ticket sales, which made 2020 an especially hard year for the zoo. But as revenue dried up, zoo officials made a decision: if people couldn t come to the zoo, the zoo would come to the people virtually. The zoo ramped up online programming and began posting Facebook Live videos almost daily, giving staff members like Fort the chance to continue educating the public about the animals and the importance of conservation.