Willie bleats in the distance , signaling that we ’ re late for breakfast . When we ’ re back in the barn , Fugate hauls the hay out , along with bowls of the alpacas ’ food . A young boy and girl with their mother watch as he performs an intricate routine of moving Willie and the alpacas into separate stalls so they don ’ t get too greedy . The rest of his morning consists of cleaning up each exhibit . He ’ ll eat lunch , work on odd projects like fixing a loose board he found on the farmyard fence , give out more meals and perform final lockups before heading out around 4:30 .
“ We ’ re back on normal schedules now , but we still don ’ t interact like we used to , eating lunch together and what not ,” he says . “ But in terms of the day-to-day operations and keeping things going , we ’ ve been pretty lucky . I ’ ve still been able to do my job . But I know the financial situation is tough . I ’ m well aware of that .”
RWPZ isn ’ t out of the woods yet . Goodman says that while he and his team had tried everything in their power to ensure that the whole zoo could get through the pandemic together , they sadly had to make some tough calls .
“ We have a $ 10 million budget and we were projected to be down about $ 5 million . We did , unfortunately , have to let a handful of people go as well as have everybody remaining on one-day-a-week furloughs . We ’ re down about 30 percent of our workforce right now and everybody is working harder than ever .”
Another tough change includes suspending the New England cottontail breeding program .
“ It takes a lot of work to breed and raise those animals , so , being short staffed and everything else , we decided to put
The zoo hopes to resume the cottontail breeding program in 2021 .
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