Work on Panda Passage moving forward at Calgary Zoo
Posted Apr 26, 2017 4:00 pm.
Last Updated Apr 26, 2017 4:20 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Work is chugging along on what will become one of the biggest attractions at the Calgary Zoo.
Installation of underground utility lines for the Panda Passage is now finished, the demolition of outbuildings and other features are finished, with foundations completed and framing underway.
Zoo President and CEO Clement Lanthier said the animals in Toronto are on schedule to arrive in about a year.
“By this time next year they will be in quarantine and the keepers will be working with them to try to make sure that they are getting familiar with the new space,” he said.
Originally, they were only going to take two pandas, but that has grown to four after two cubs were born last year.
More staff are also being hired to prepare for the extra traffic.
“In 1988 when a panda visited the Calgary Zoo, the Zoo experienced a 69 per cent increase in attendance, this is huge,” he said. “They came for only one year, so this time they are coming for five years.”
The Zoo is expecting a 20 per cent rise in visitors and the province expects the passage and the new Land of Lemurs exhibit to increase the facility’s economic impact by over $15 million a year.
At the end of the animals five-year stay in Calgary, the space will be used for orangutans.
Along with the attraction of the pandas, the exhibit will also be used to promote awareness for other at-risk species and Calgary’s Wildlife Conservation Centre.
