The 44-hectare site in the Loir-et-Cher thus recorded a 43% increase in visitors compared to 2021.
The ZooParc de Beauval in Saint-Aignan (Loir-et-Cher) welcomed 2 million visitors in 2022, a record attendance, up 43% compared to 2021, announced to AFP its director Rodolphe Delord. “10 years ago, we had 1 million visitors with the arrival of pandas. Since 2012 we have made colossal investments for the well-being of animals and for visitors to spend a moment of dream and wonder.“, confided the director of the site which shelters 35,000 animals of 800 different species on 44 hectares.
“Since Covid-19, the French have remained in France. Visitors come to us to relax with their families. We passed the 2 million visitor mark in 2022“, which makes Beauval a site of very strong tourist attraction in France, “it’s a huge recognition“, he congratulates himself. “Today we are recognized as a place of animal welfare, biodiversity conservation and scientific research. It is for this reason that we receive visitors all year round.“, he added.
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The pandas Yuan Zi and Huan Huan had been loaned for ten years to France in 2012. Their lease had been extended until 2024 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and Beauval “hope“continue to host the two plantigrades after 2024. Among their offspring, a panda born in 2017 (whose twin had not been viable) has Brigitte Macron as godmother and twins born in the summer of 2021 have Kylian Mbappé as godfather.
In the spring, visitors will discover La Grande Avière Sud-Américaine. “It is an aviary of 1.6 hectares, 35 meters high, the largest aviary in Europe and certainly the second in the world.» Nearly 500 South American birds will be presented, all born in zoological parks in conservation programs in France and Europe.
“There will also be giant anteaters and howler monkeys. Visitors will walk on high walkways, on rope bridges, the birds will be above. The public will be immersed in the middle of the birds“said Rodolphe Delord. Originally a simple ornithological park created in 1980, Beauval became a zoo with the purchase of the first felines in 1989. It was the arrival of two rare white tigers that made it famous in 1991, even before the pandas. .