The General Manager of the BC Wildlife Park is asking all guests to wear a mask while at any of the park’s indoor public spaces.

Glenn Grant says staff will also be wearing masks and he says guests will be allowed to take them off when they are outdoors.

“Really the only indoor public space that we have is the main building which includes the gift shop, the cafe, and the gallery. So once people come in and they pay their admission, we ask that they wear a mask while they are inside that building,” he said. “We thought it would be a good safety protocol moving forward.

“It’s not just Kamloops people that are here, they are coming from Kelowna and they coming from the Shuswap and from the Lower Mainland that we just thought it would be good prudence to make a policy to wear a mask while you’re in an indoor public space.”

Grant says the BC Wildlife Park is able to accommodate 1,000 people because of the large amount of open space available. Between June and August of this year, he says there were about 43,000 visitors to the park compared to 44,000 during the same three months last year.

“Indoor public spaces I think is important for us I think to respect people’s safety,” Grant added. “We’re hoping that our guests respect that, we just want to keep everybody safe – both our guests and our staff.”