Despite a disappointing attendance, Discovery Wildlife Park still raised $10,000 last Saturday for the flood stricken Calgary Zoo.
The park dedicated the day's entire gate receipts to the Calgary Zoo. Doug Bos, co-owner of Discovery Wildlife Park, was hoping up to 2,000 people would attend. However, when final numbers were tallied, the park had a total of 722 visitors last Saturday, which produced close to $10,000 in gate receipts.
“It is still a decent donation. We were geared up. We had enough supplies, volunteers and everything set up to deal with a crowd twice that size at least,” said Bos. “It was a fun event and it was great to have the Calgary Zoo people here to answer questions. A lot of people here got some first-hand information.
“The big thing we can hope to do out of this is challenge other companies and non-profit organizations to do fundraisers to help raise some more funds because we are a long way from $50 million,” added Bos.
However, the effort thrilled officials from the Calgary Zoo, who are trying to raise millions through its 2 BY 2 Rebuild The Zoo campaign to offset the $50-million damage the June flood caused at the facility.
“Doug Bos and Debbi Rowland have been wonderful partners for us for decades and they answered the call on the night of the flood evacuation,” said Judy Lang, manager of marketing at the Calgary Zoo. “We needed some bigger crates for our big cats to get them out of the zoo. They didn't even hesitate. They loaded up and came down and lended a helping hand. It was much needed and appreciated so we wanted to be here to support them.”
On top of the $50-million damage to the zoo's buildings and land, there will be a further $10-million operating loss because the facility has been shut down to the public since the flood, said Lang.
“Our biggest months are the summer months,” said Lang. “We do half our visitation in three to four months, and being that we've been closed in one of our busiest times of year it has been a major blow for us. This is why we are working very quickly to get it partially open for July 31.”
She said insurance would cover up to 60 per cent of the damage. But Calgary Zoo officials have to raise the rest, including working with the province and the City of Calgary on where the funding will come from.
“Just like everyone else we are in line, but we have talked to the province and the city and everybody is anxious to get the zoo back up and running because the Calgary Zoo is an important part of this province and the city,” said Lang, adding the zoo's fundraising campaign has now raised about $1 million. “Everyone wants to see the zoo open, including ourselves. We got to get those animals back to where they need to be.”
In the meantime, many animals have been moved to other zoos across Canada. Lang said it is possible Discovery Wildlife Park may take some animals in the future.
“It depends where we are. Right now all the other animals are spoken for. They have gone to other places where there is enough space to hold them, but it depends on how things progress as we move through the cleanup and what needs to be done.”
