I THINK many of us are doing a lot of looking forward and back at the moment: comparing this strange year to what we were doing in more normal times, and gradually daring to plan ahead, writes zoo manager Jack Williams.

After months unable to see the way out of lockdown, we’ve just had our busiest July ever.

With many families bursting to get out, places like ours are the ideal resource for meeting up and running off energy- we’ve even extended opening hours to give visitors more flexibility.

This time last year, the zoo was participating in the ‘Big Bug Bonanza’, a week of events at zoos across the country highlighting the invertebrate world in all its amazing diversity.

It’s a biannual event, so it wouldn’t officially have been on this year, but since we’re big bug fans at the zoo, we always like to give our creepy crawlies a chance to shine.

If you think of insects as those annoying things that land on your picnic and invade your house, it’s time to reconsider: the human race needs insects in order to survive.

Across almost a million species, insects make up 98 per cent of all animal life on earth. They pollinate flowers and vital crops, control pests, clear waste, and are a food source for everything from birds to mammals to fish; the foundation of every ecosystem we rely on.

But they are declining by 2.5 per cent a year, with a third already endangered. If that doesn’t sound much, if the trend continues that means no insects left in just 100 years, with us gone long before that.

So what can we do? With 16 million gardens in Britain, you can make a difference right on your doorstep. Websites like Buglife have great tips for creating an insect friendly, pesticide free haven.

Have fun planting bee friendly flowers, making woodpiles for beetles and centipedes, and ponds for aquatic invertebrates and dragonflies.

The zoo has lots more hints and tips to becoming an insect champion, and we love introducing people to our bugs, beetles, hissing cockroaches, and giant millipedes.

You could say it’s definitely a cause that’s got legs!