LINK - Columbus Dispatch

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is on track to break last year's attendance record of 2.2 million.

After a record June, the zoo reached the 1 million-visitor mark on July 2, the earliest ever.

In June, the zoo and Zoombezi Bay attracted 416,898 visitors, a 15 percent increase over June 2009. Polar Frontier, a $20million exhibit, opened in May.

For those of you who haven't been to the Columbus Zoo and Zoombezi Bay, here is my Photo Trip Report from last month:

LINK - PREMiERdrum's Columbus Zoo PTR

Good for the C-Bus Zoo! Obviously, the opening of the Polar Frontier has been a big draw this year. (I haven't seen it yet, but everyone I talk to says it's pretty fantastic.) However, I also think the weather has been a big plus this year, particularly for Zoombezi Bay. (If I'm not mistaken in the Summer of 2009 we only had a few 90+ days...but, that's been pretty much EVERY day this Summer! )

If you haven't been there, the Columbus Zoo is an outstanding park and PREMiERdrum's PTR does a great job of showing you the highlights.

I have not been to the Columbus Zoo yet. I have some relatives that recently moved to Dayton (my cousin-in-law is stationed at Wright Patt right now), and they recently bought a family membership to the Columbus Zoo.

On the subject of 90 degree days, I believe that last July we had something crazy like only one day the entire month where the temperature hit 90 degrees. It might not even had hit 90 once the entire month. Compare that to 2007, where the month of August had something like 7 days where the mercury topped 100!

Since we're discussing the zoo...

Suzi Rapp and the Zoo's PR team do something with our station every Friday on our noon show. Usually we send a crew up there and do something live, but this week they came to us, and brought a 52-day old Snow Leopard cub!

(I apologize for the poor picture quality, it was taken on my cell phone)