This past year has officially been the best ever for visitors at the BC Wildlife Park in Kamloops.

The park’s general manager Glen Grant says with the conclusion of Wildlights last night, there have now been more than 104,000 visitors this fiscal year.

That’s more than the previous all-time high which was more than 103,000 three years ago.

“We still have weekends to go through January, our fiscal year ends on January 31st. So we should be able to get another 700 visitors through the rest of the month and get over 105,000 visitors for the first time in our history,” Grant says while speaking on the Jim Harrison Show.

He adds that more than 18,000 visitors came to Wildlights this year, up about 33 per cent from the year earlier. He says good weather was the biggest reason why the turnout was so strong.

“That’s a huge turnaround for revenue for the park, going through the spring now when we’re gunna be still closed and not generating a lot of revenue. I think this was one of the best Wildlights shows we had in a long time.”

For the year, Grant acknowledged wildfire smoke had a negative impact on the number of visitors for part of July and August, but he says relatively good weather for year had a positive impact in interest at the park.