Attendance record broken at Camperdown Wildlife Centre

Camperdown Wildlife Centre has revealed that Sunday’s Community Open Day was their most successful day ever, with over 6500 people taking advantage of free entry at the annual event.

The previous highest attendance on a single day was on Easter Sunday in 1990 with around 4000 attending but that record has now been smashed with the number of visitors attending last weekend.

The Community Open Day has grown in popularity year on year with the varied selection of threatened and endangered animals along with family activities being the main attraction. Staff have also credited two of the centre’s newest residents, 8 year old Hyacinth Macaws, Ben and Minnie for much of the success this time.

Bradly Yule, network manager at Camperdown Wildlife Centre said,

“Ben and Minnie have proved to be a huge hit with visitors and we are delighted that so many of the public took the opportunity to visit them. Hyacinth macaws are the largest member of the macaw family and are very social birds, generally living in pairs or small groups. Sadly, they have suffered from decades of poaching for the illegal pet trade and for their beautiful blue feathers. Ben and Minnie have settled in well at the Wildlife Centre in their new surroundings and we couldn’t be more pleased with their introduction here.”

“We are delighted with the response to this year’s event, every year we give the local community the chance to visit us for free and this year we have been blown away by the response.”

As well as the chance to see rare and endangered animals there was also the chance to take part in arts and crafts, badge making, face-painting, colouring competition and learning sessions at animal feeding times with dedicated zookeepers.