A Devon zoo has been saved from imminent closure after a flood of donations helped it meet its monthly budget in a single night.

Dartmoor Zoo appealed for help after revenue suddenly dried up due to the coronavirus lockdown and it had only enough cash left for two and a half weeks.

It costs £11,500 a week to look after its 250 animals.

Deputy chief executive Coral Jones said: “We looked at our donations emails this morning, and there was an amazing response. When we added it all up it was about £40,000.”

She said the response had been “phenomenal” following a Sky News report examining the plight of zoos during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The money offers the zoo another four weeks of running costs – but the future after that is still uncertain.

“The support is incredible,” said Ms Jones.

“There’s people donating half their salaries in one go, there are people donating £50, but even just a tenner or a fiver makes such a difference.

“The positive comments have been really humbling, that people are happy to support us and keen to carry on supporting us,” she added.

During feeding time for two Siberian tigers, zoo boss Ben Mee told Sky News: “We’re a seasonal charity – absolutely dependent on income through the holiday period to keep endangered animals alive.”

He said it was vital to get “people through the door” to pay for food, vet bills and zookeepers.

The lockdown has meant many zoos are struggling, with running costs remaining high.

Dartmoor Zoo has furloughed around two thirds of its staff, but 14 have been kept on to feed the animals.

Mr Mee said they have so far been unable to claim £100,000 of business interruption money through their insurance company.

Before the public’s generous help, Ms Jones told Sky News the zoo’s prospects appeared bleak.

“We’d have to look for homes for these guys and hopefully we’d find suitable homes for them which is not easy considering the animals we’ve got,” she said.

“The worst case scenario is we’d have to look at euthanasia ,which absolutely cannot happen as far as we’re concerned, and we’ll work very hard not to be the end result.”

With traditional fundraising events not possible, they launched the emergency appeal to raise money.

Eleven-year-old Joshua White heard about the zoo’s problems and is now climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest up his stairs at home to raise money.

He said: “We love animals, I’ve always loved animals all my life… I like all the powers it can do…it’s like animals have superpowers, so I really wanted to help save the animals and a lot of people do too. So I wanted to do it.”

Joshua says he has completed around 1,000 of 3,400 steps so far.

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