This February heat wave is going down in the Detroit Zoo history books! Record breaking temperatures have brought record breaking crowds and even more animals out at the zoo.
Though tigers can't change their stripes, February proved, it sure can and thousands flocked to the Detroit Zoo to make the most of record breaking temperatures.
“We've never seen this kind of attendance in February and what's wonderful is the animals are happy too,” says Gerry VanAcker, Chief Operating Officer for the Detroit Zoo.
“That little chimp has been going crazy! He's been climbing up on the rock and rolling all over the place,” says young Davis Nieman.
There were many more animals to see than usual for February. Rhinos, for example don't come outside unless it's 55 degrees, so they aren’t usually seen until April or May yet this weekend, they took many long walks in the sun. Zebras and Giraffes and Lions are also warm weather animals we saw out and about today. Plenty of animals to please the steady stream of people.
“We'll typically do 30,000 the whole month and now in three or 4 days we'll do 40 or 50 thousand,” says VanAcker.
Which means he had to hire the seasonal staff early.
“We had to really dig deep to find employees to come help us today and yesterday and we expect tomorrow will be busy too with Presidents' Day,” says VanAcker.
It's incredible! We thought we'd have to wait another 4 or 5 months to even come here,” says Christian Nieman who brought his family to the zoo on Sunday. “The kids are having a ball!”
