Zoo attendance heats up
Warm weather brings out record number of visitors
BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo has reaped the rewards of an unusually warm January and set a new attendance record for the normally frigid month.
The new zoo attendance record for the month of January is 13,269 visitors, a number significantly higher than the January 2011
attendance of 8,061, Mary Woods, the zoo’s spokeswoman said.
The January 2012 number is the highest ever recorded since the zoo opened in 1970, Woods said.
The second-highest January attendance was 12,172 visitors in 2006, Woods said.
“We have seen lots of families out taking advantage of the weather, and we are not used to seeing that this time of year,” Woods said.
Warmer weather doesn’t just mean more visitors to the zoo.
Woods said warmer, sunny days lure zoo animals out of sheltered areas to walk and roam around their exhibits.
“A lot of these animals do well in Louisiana because of the climate. We are talking about animals from places like Africa and Australia. The cold doesn’t bother them, but in the warm weather I think we see animals more frisky and taking less cat naps,” Woods said.
Woods said the average January attendance at the zoo is about 6,000 visitors.
The annual total attendance for 2011 was 255,506.
Although the zoo is gaining visitors this winter because of the weather, the facility had the opposite problem last summer.
A brutal heat with temperatures in the upper 90s and, sometimes, above 100 degrees, kept attendance down in the summer season.
“The summer was horrible (for zoo attendance) because it was especially hot,” Woods said.
The warm weather this January is setting records throughout the country.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has identified January 2012 as the fourth-warmest January on record for the United States.
It’s also the warmest January since 2006, NOAA officials have said.
State Climatologist Barry Keim said the average temperature in Baton Rouge near the airport in January was 58 degrees. The average high during that time was 69 degrees while the average low was 47 degrees.
Keim said the January temperatures are about 8 degrees above normal.
Keim said the prediction for the rest of February and March is to stay mostly warm and dry.
The economy in general and a recent $1.25 increase in admission for adults and children that went into effect in January has not seemed to affect attendance.
“I’m the one who gets all those complaints about prices but we have not heard any so far,” Woods said.
The new cost for adults and teens is $8.25 while the new cost for children is $5.25.
“People talk about attendance and what’s going on in the economy but I don’t really buy that. I think people recognize that the zoo is a great value for the family, Woods said.