TROUBLE AT THE ZOO
Attendance plummets over first half of 2015, but a baby panda could be a ray of hope,
Despite the continued cuddliness of two giant panda newcomers, attendance at the Toronto Zoo dropped further this year, with some testy disagreement as to why.
Nearly 50,000 fewer people walked through the zoo’s wooden gates in the first seven months of 2015 than in the same period last year, a recent report by the chief operating officer shows. The 7-per-cent decrease, to 656,000 visitors, saw a proportionate drop in revenue of nearly $1.3 million. The zoo sold fewer tickets, parking passes, memberships and food and retail items, amounting to $17.4 million as of July 31, according to the report to be tabled at an upcoming management board meeting.
The dip follows a steeper year-todate plunge of 300,000 visitors and $8.3 million in the first three-quarters of 2014 compared to 2013, a more than 20-per-cent free fall in both categories.
Then, the zoo blamed the departure of three star elephants, a cold winter and the opening of the rival Ripley’s Aquarium.
Now, winter is again the culprit, along with Pan Am Games congestion and the aquarium downtown, says chief operating officer Robin Hale.
“Weather sensitivity to zoo attendance remains a key challenge, and it is very difficult to recover given the current budget target,” Hale wrote in the Aug. 31 report.
Thirty-nine extreme cold weather alerts were issued by the city in the first three months of 2015.
Hale also stated Toronto residents kept off the roads during Pan Am to the point of “negatively impact(ing) . . . attendance.”
“A lot of people I know just stayed the hell out of town,” Hale told the Star Friday. “The Argentinians and Brazilians were big (zoo) fans, though,” he added.
Games officials said fears of mass congestion and traffic woes that attended the run-up to the games were largely overstated.
Coun. Raymond Cho, who chairs the zoo’s management board, cited causes as broad as the apparent Canadian recession — “it’s not helping” — to the Ripley’s rivalry, set off when the aquarium opened in October 2013 and supposedly curtailed the zoo’s highest-revenue year ever.
“This summer even I went to see the aquarium twice,” Cho said, citing visits with his grandchildren.
He said a renewed focus on education and research as part of the zoo’s 15-year plan would put it back on top. Plus the pandas.
“Thank God we brought the pandas. We are hopefully expecting a baby. If it comes, attendance will go up.”
Two giant pandas, Er Shun and Da Mao, arrived from China in March 2013. Despite racking up bills of $1.8 million a year, they likely spurred a surge in attendance that year, the zoo’s third-highest since it opened in 1974.
The zoo’s best attendance record reaches back a generation to 1985, when pandas Qing Quin and Quan Quan caught a flight east for a 100day visit.
Two attempts have been made to artificially inseminate Er Shun. It can take until the last three weeks of a panda’s often five-month gestation period to confirm a pregnancy, Hale said.
“Pandas like to keep it in suspense,” he observed. “But baby animals are always good. People like to see babies.”
Kiko the Masai giraffe, unveiled to the public Thursday, couldn’t hurt either, he added.
Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti, who sits on the management board which oversees the city-owned zoo, had a different view of the causes behind the financial bleeding.
“The reason there is a decline in the number of visits at the Toronto Zoo over the past couple of years is because I am no longer the chair of the board,” he said in an email.