It was another topsy-turvy summer at the BC Wildlife Park which did not go according to plan.

General Manager Glenn Grant says staff were optimistic when COVID-related travel restrictions were eased earlier this year, though the heat and wildfires brought with it other challenges.

“Normally, around 35 C people quit coming outdoors and doing some of those activities so when we were pushing 50 C, yeah July was drastically down from our projections and then you follow that up with the smoke and the wildfires through August that also depleted our attendance,” Grant said

“Overall, it was definitely not what we had planned.”

Still, he says the roughly 200 animals that call the park home fared pretty well during the hot and smoky summer.

“We were a little bit creative on how to keep the animals pretty hydrated through the heat but no one wants to walk around like that in the sun,” Grant said. “We lost about 5,000 visitors in July and about another 5,000 in August, which when you translate that back to dollars, that’s close to $90,000 to $100,000 in lost revenue.”

In early August, the BC Wildlife Park was one of several Kamloops businesses that were put on a evacuation alert because of the White Rock Lake Fire, the first time ever in the park’s history where it was put on an alert.

“It was a challenging summer to say the least but we’re going to put that behind us,” Grant said. “We’re going to look forward to a great fall. We’re going to a really great Wildlights and just move on.”

“We can’t do anything about what has happened. We can only be optimistic about what we can do in the future.”