SPRINGFIELD -- Rosebud, a 4-month-old pygmy goat, joined staffers and board members at The Zoo in Forest Park & Education Center along with state lawmakers Tuesday to announce $75,000 in state funding for the 154-year-old zoo.

The money, about an eighth of the zoo's $600,000 annual budget, will go to feed and care for the 150 animals this winter when the gates are closed and the weather turns cold, said Sarah Tsitso, executive director.

The zoo spends, for example, $2,000 a month just on hay, she said.

The funding is the latest boost for the zoo, which has pulled itself out of a challenging financial period. The zoo, governed by the Forest Park Zoological Society, expects a balanced budget this year with the state money, increased fundraising, events and attendance revenue, Tsitso said.

Tuesday's announcement, organized by state Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow, comes as the 4-acre zoo is seeing an uptick in visitors, she said. There were 44,000 visitors in 2017, and the 2018 season, which ends at the end of October, is on track to bring 50,000 visitors or more.

The zoo is not a city department, but a nonprofit organization that pays nominal rent for the land in the park.

"We've added animals and new exhibits," Tsitso said. "And people have come specifically to see those new animals."

Additions include a pair of of African serval cats that went on display in July with the financial help of Paul Picknelly of the Sheraton Springfield and the new Starbucks at Monarch Place.

And lots of animals were brought to the zoo because they were sick, injured and unable to live in the wild or kept by people in unsafe conditions and cannot live on their own. That includes Cassie, an orphaned coyote with a broken leg, two red-tailed hawks that cannot fly and two raccoons that were kept as pets.

The zoo expects to get two bald eagles -- a male and a female -- from Alaska by the end of fall, Tsitso said. The eagles both have wing injuries and cannot fly, so they need to be cared for in captivity. The zoo has already built a habitat for them.

The zoo has had a bald eagle before, she said.

About 85 percent of the animals at the zoo are sick, injured or too accustomed to humans to live on their own, she said.

Lesser spoke of how important the zoo is as a cultural and educational tool in Springfield.

State reps. Carlos Gonzalez, Jose Tosado and Bud Williams, all Springfield Democrats, said Forest Park Zoo is especially important for young people growing up in underserved neighborhoods and with limited resources.

"A lot of kids in urban America never get to see animals, except on television," Williams said.

Gonzelz said those kids learn about wildlife without having to travel.

"If it wasn't for Forest Park, they wouldn't have that opportunity," he said.

Williams also praised the staff and the board at the zoo for their work putting it on sound financial footing.

"It wasn't that long ago this place was on the verge of going belly up," he said.

Tsitso doesn't expect to go to the City Council this year looking for money, she said. The end-of-season audit is ongoing.