When the gates of the Metro Toronto Zoo opened in Aug. 15, 1974, officials anticipated a first day crush of 50,000 visitors.

What they got was 8,000 as officials blamed an ongoing transit strike and fears of overcrowding for keeping visitors away. It wasn’t the only glitch.

The guests who did come complained of too-high barriers that prevented children from seeing some of the animals on display. Some of the animals were impossible to see at all: A group of aardvarks mysteriously disappeared, believed to have burrowed under their enclosure, far from view.

“We’re just going to have to wait for them to come out,” a senior zoo employee explained to the Star then.

Throughout its more than 40 year history, officials charged with overseeing the 700-acre public zoo, have been exceedingly optimistic that putting a wide selection of the animal kingdom — especially newborns — on display would attract the kind of visitors needed to keep it running. But in all the time gates have been open, the Toronto Zoo, as it’s known now, has always operated at a loss, needing millions from the city each year to keep going.

Bad weather, declining spending on tourism and competing attractions have been the target of blame since Day One.

But with attendance rates falling — reaching an eight-year low last year even as zoos in Calgary, San Diego and New York have seen revenues climb — the Toronto Zoo is faced with an age-old problem: Adapt to survive. But how?

For the last six years, the person in charge has been John Tracogna, who took over as CEO in the spring of 2010.

On a miserably wet March morning, hard hat on, he’s eager to show off the construction of a new $18 million Wildlife Health Centre — a high-tech zoo hospital and laboratory — set to open next year.

For Tracogna, the new facility represents a renewed vision for the zoo — one that brings the vast conservation efforts, including a successful breeding program that recently celebrated the birth of two very well-received panda cubs. That kind of work, he notes, has taken place behind closed doors.

“The public sees a lot of public facing but they don’t necessarily hear or see this work and we’re trying hard to get that out there,” Tracogna said. The new centre will have a public atrium where visitors and potential donors will be able to see a minor surgery in process or to learn about the vat of giant panda sperm still being stored at the zoo.

Still, as a non-profit, the zoo is tasked with breaking even, which means selling tickets and also fundraising.

On attendance, Tracogna said the numbers have seen “peaks and valleys,” but maintains they are one of the top visited public attractions in the city.

“We’re pleased about that, but also recognize we have much more to do to grow in order to support all of our conservation programs,” Tracogna said. “We recognize we can’t simply rely on the city’s investment.”

That taxpayer investment totals $11.9 million this year to balance the zoo’s $51.2 million operating budget. That 23.4 per cent subsidy, Tracogna said, is below the 34 per cent average calculated by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and below that of other public attractions in Toronto subsidized by the province.

The competing interests of expensive conservation and a need to make money hasn’t always panned out.

A five-year deal to host two giant pandas from China was a breeding exercise, not about boosting attendance numbers, Tracogna said. The team from China and the Toronto Zoo were the first in Canada to artificially inseminate a giant panda, a celebrated achievement as far as conservation efforts go.

But despite a spike in attendance in 2013 when the pair of adult pandas first arrived, numbers have dropped off dramatically since then.

Tracogna says the zoo anticipated this with the creation of a stabilization fund or what he calls a “rainy day fund” which the zoo contributed $3 million to at the end of 2013.

It has been very rainy since.

Just over $1 million remained in the reserve at the beginning of this year, with zoo officials now banking on a fifth-year spike in attendance before the pandas depart for the Calgary Zoo for the next leg of their tour.

“We’re very confident that we’ll be able to achieve that and hopefully exceed that based on where we are today with all of the successful breeding programs,” Tracogna said.

There is at least one official who argues the panda cubs, which belong to China, should stay permanently. Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, who sits on the zoo’s board and who has likened himself as a “second mother” to the bears, successfully got the board to approve up to $16,000 in taxpayer money to send a delegation to China at the same time Mayor John Tory has planned a trade mission to make that pitch.

But there is no guarantee the pandas will boost revenues enough to even offset the cost of hosting them. The Toronto Zoo will have paid $6.6 million to a conservation fund in China just to house the adult bears for five years and an additional $530,000 for the cubs, which comes out of the zoo’s operating expenses. That does not include more than $500,000 annually to feed, house and care for the pandas.

Board chair Councillor Raymond Cho, whose Scarborough ward the zoo is in, agrees the pandas are “so cuddly,” but said he’s abstaining from making the trip to China.

“It’s all taxpayer’s money,” he said. “I don’t know whether attendance will go up again, so we have to be very careful.”

Still, he shares the zoo’s optimism in hoping the panda cubs will draw crowds as soon as this week with warm weather expected for March Break.

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Tory, who has not officially invited Mammoliti as part of his own delegation to China, said the money the city contributes to the zoo is not insignificant.

Selling the shifting focus on conservation has to be done better, Tory said.

“We failed in the public’s mind, I’m sure, to kind of make that transition,” he said, adding he’s not sure yet what it will take to boost attendance and revenue. “It’s been on kind of one of those slow declines and you have to arrest those sooner or later . . . If the overall trend line is still (declining), then the baby animals aren’t saving you, they’re actually misleading you.”

The zoo is expected to present a strategic and master plan this summer, what will look at improvements to exhibits and existing zoo infrastructure, as well as concerns over a lack of direct public transportation (executive committee recently voted against looking at an enhanced bus service) and building a new fundraising foundation to promote conservation efforts.

And both Tracogna and Cho are encouraged by the efforts from Parks Canada to create the Rouge National Urban Park in the zoo’s backyard. Tracogna said they are looking at possible collaborations including “boutique lodging” where families could stay a weekend in Scarborough that includes a trip to the zoo.

But is the zoo itself still exciting enough to draw the kinds of crowds needed to pay for the science in a digital media age? The zoo’s own YouTube channel is one of many places to view panda videos, top officials know.

Those in charge are banking on the fact people still want to walk through the gates and press their faces to the plexiglas.

“What we’re finding over and over is people want to be able to see the real thing,” Tracogna said. “Be in close proximity, hear the sounds, smell the smells.”

How the zoo is funded:

1975: 37.9 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 62.1 per cent city subsidy

1980: 37.3 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 62.7 per cent city subsidy

1985: 64 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 36 per cent city subsidy

1990: 48.3 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 51.7 per cent city subsidy

1995: 53.9 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 46.1 per cent city subsidy

2000: 66.3 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 33.7 per cent city subsidy

2005: 68.3 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 31.7 per cent city subsidy

2010: 74.9 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 25.1 per cent city subsidy

2012: 75.7 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 24.3 per cent city subsidy

2013: 78.5 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 21.5 per cent city subsidy

2014: 77.9 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 22.1 per cent city subsidy

2015: 76.8 per cent zoo-generated revenues; 23.2 per cent city subsidy