Zoos, cost pressures and the importance of telling the full story

I read the BBC article today highlighting the very real financial pressures facing parts of the UK zoo sector. Rising costs, pressure on household budgets and increasing expectations are challenging for many organisations, and it is right that those realities are acknowledged. 
 
However, it is also important that a single narrative does not come to define an entire sector.

Last year, BIAZA member zoos and aquariums welcomed more than 30 million visitors, including over 1.1 million education visitors. Together, they invested £28.8 million directly into conservation, supporting wildlife in the UK and around the world. That level of public engagement and conservation spend reflects a sector that continues to earn public trust and deliver against its purpose – to create a better world for nature.  
 
At Chester Zoo, the past year reflects that wider picture. As the UK’s national conservation zoo, in 2025 we welcomed more than 2.1 million visitors, the highest number in our 94-year history, during a period of sustained economic pressure. Membership reached record levels, our major events sold out, and our new hotel is performing strongly. Public support for our work has never been clearer. 

But success for us is not measured by visitor numbers alone. 
 
That support enables conservation impact. It allows us to influence environmental policy, support nature and communities in 20 countries, and work alongside NGOs, scientists and governments to address biodiversity loss. 

 
Last year, our teams helped deliver a scientific first with the development of the world’s first vaccine for a deadly virus affecting elephants worldwide. This weekend, on IUCN’s Reverse the Red Day, we’ll also be sharing an extraordinary milestone that still feels extraordinary: the official saving of the critically endangered Bermuda snail from extinction. That species would simply no longer exist without our sustained, collaborative conservation action. 
 
This is why nuance matters in conversations about zoos. 
 
At their best, conservation zoos are science organisations, educators, employers, community assets and global conservation partners. Public engagement is not the end goal. It is the means by which we fund and deliver conservation at scale. 
 
Chester Zoo is not an outlier, and we are certainly not alone. Many zoos across the UK and Ireland are thriving financially, delivering strong visitor experiences and making meaningful contributions to conservation. The strength of our sector lies in that collective effort and in a shared commitment to high standards and long-term impact. 
 
Challenges remain, and they always will. But the future of conservation zoos should be shaped not only by what is difficult, but by what is working, and by the role our sector can play in reversing biodiversity loss at a time when nature needs it most. 
 
That’s a story that deserves to be told in full.