Why do you need to wear a mask at Monkey World?
Monkey World is outdoors, but they're still asking people to wear masks.
As of April, we've all been out enjoying outdoor spaces again. Many of them are allowing us to go maskless while we're outdoors, but Monkey World near Wareham is the exception.
It's because primates are so closely related to us that they're able to catch COVID-19.
At one zoo in San Diego, primates are being vaccinated against the infection following an outbreak of COVID-19 among the animals.
Animals at Monkey World are set at a distance from the general public, the staff are worried about the handlers catching the illness and passing it on.
Appropriate safety measures are in place such as lateral flow testing.
Monkey World Director Dr Alison Cronin said:
"I made the decision to close Monkey World a few weeks before the government insisted upon the first lockdown and that was because I could see what was happening and knew that are especially our great apes, but all of our primates here at the park run the risk of catching COVID-19.
"It's a risk that we're still very cautious with. We're still asking everybody who visits the park here to wear a mask because we're trying to protect our essential carers, our primate care staff, as well as making sure that any new variants don't transmit to our rescued chimpanzees and orangutans, or even Gibbons who are not vaccinated."
Currently, there are no plans to vaccinate any of the monkeys at the park against the virus.
As yet safety measures have been sufficient to protect against the disease and there have been no outbreaks at the park.
But Alison says she's open to vaccinating the animals if any jabs are going spare. She said:
"I wouldn't be so bold or selfish at this point to start campaigning for what is potentially a limited number of vaccines to be given to us so that we could vaccinate our chimpanzees orangutans. However, I have made it clear to various local vaccination centres that if at the end of the day they have one or even two spare vaccines that are going to be disposed of, please call us."