{"id":427238,"date":"2026-01-23T03:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/427238\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T03:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:37:11","slug":"toronto-zoo-sees-fewer-visitors-as-extreme-heat-cold-dampen-demand-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/427238\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Zoo sees fewer visitors as extreme heat, cold dampen demand – Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Toronto Zoo<\/a> CEO Dolf DeJong puts it, his staff can\u2019t ask the gorillas to put on a sweater when it gets cold.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But guests can choose to stay at home.<\/p>\n

Toronto Zoo is one of the city\u2019s most popular and iconic spots, open every day of the year with some 280 different species of animals. Last year, a cocktail of volatile weather converged to slightly dampen demand.<\/p>\n

The massive outdoor attraction expected 1.39 million visitors to flock to its Rouge National Urban Park campus in 2025.<\/p>\n

A combination of extreme weather and tough economic conditions, however, saw it fall short, with 1.26 million visits instead. It was also a drop below the number of visitors in 2024.<\/p>\n

Annual budget documents submitted by the zoo to the City of Toronto cite extreme winter cold, along with summer heat and humidity, as a key reason roughly 130,000 projected visits disappeared.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe didn\u2019t just see regular bad weather; we saw a record number of heat waves this summer, with days over 32 degrees, ice storms in November causing power outages,\u201d DeJong explained.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was a bit of everything, and that doesn\u2019t even take into account the impact of events in the west with that wildfire smoke and the recommendation to stay inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Large stretches of the Toronto Zoo are made up of relatively exposed outdoor trails that wind between animal enclosures. On extremely hot or extremely cold days, there are few places to get warm or shelter from the heat, while still seeing the animals which draw guests to the zoo.<\/p>\n

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Facing a growing number of extreme heat and cold events, the zoo is working to pivot how it operates to reduce its reliance on perfect summer days to attract visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of our planning talks about being a 24\/7, 365 zoo, building out so we\u2019re not as dependent on those peak summer days,\u201d DeJong explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see that with what\u2019s happening at the zoo with the addition of the Community Conservation Centre, for instance, which really focuses on serving students and weekdays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several years ago, the zoo added a splashpad for summer cooldown. They\u2019re also building more benches and working on ways to expand forest canopies to shelter from wind and direct sun.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Potentially catastrophic\u2019 winter storm set to hit southern part of U.S\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to do more work in that area as we look to stretch the year,\u201d DeJong said.<\/p>\n

While the zoo failed to hit its attendance target this year, officials remain confident. Next year, the zoo is targeting almost 1.4 million visits, rising to 1.42 million the following year.<\/p>\n

Even 2025\u2019s figures were a relatively high watermark. It marked the fourth-highest attendance in the past decade and the 11th-highest over 25 years.<\/p>\n

Still, the zoo is cognizant that extreme weather will impact guests and animals alike. The potential for more power outages requires generators, while extreme heat can put pressure on cooling systems in enclosures like polar bears.<\/p>\n

\u201cFish need to breathe no matter what, so we need to keep water turning over,\u201d DeJong said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gorillas \u2014 we can\u2019t have them put on a sweater if it gets cold, so we need to keep it warm no matter what. So having the infrastructure in place to deal with those more extreme events has become a bigger part of our planning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toronto Zoo attendance in recent years:<\/p>\n

2025: 1,250,8402024: 1,364,4772023: 1,330,3912022: 1,210,8172021: 751,1202020: 431,5172019: 1,210,2242018: 1,115,8192017: 1,058,6222016: 1,309,542\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Toronto Zoo CEO Dolf DeJong puts it, his staff can\u2019t ask the gorillas to put on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66,149823],"class_list":{"0":"post-427238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-toronto-zoo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}