Phoenix Zoo aims to attract more visitors with new big cats habitat

The Phoenix Zoo hopes to attract more tourists with the opening the new $5.4 million Big Cats of Arizona exhibit, which opened to the public in early April.

Financing for the habitat in the zoo’s Arizona Trail section began in 2021 with a $768,000 grant from the Arizona Office of Tourism’s Visit Arizona initiative. The program helps fund projects that directly support jobs in the travel and hospitality sectors and increases tourism in the state.

The zoo had to raise the remaining money for the exhibit, which houses two jaguars and one mountain lion, by September 2023.

“A lot of folks have never seen mountain lions or jaguars because they’re so few and far between in the state of Arizona,” says Linda Hardwick, vice president of marketing, communications and events at the zoo. “Getting to see them up close is definitely something that we hope people will want to take advantage of and … see in person.”

The exhibit opened earlier this month.

Jaguar and mountain lion sightings are rare in the United States, and Arizona is one of only three states with a jaguar population, according to the Environmental Literacy Council.

The two jaguars who will live in the new exhibit, Caipora and Saban, came to the zoo as part of the Species Survival Plan, which ensures healthy zoo populations. Their new habitat is more than double the size of their previous enclosure. The mountain lion, Mystic, was found as an abandoned orphan in South Dakota. Her living space will be about five times the size of her former home.

Hardwick said the new habitat not only provides better shelter for the cats but also offers a “cat walk” where people can walk directly under the animals.

The cats’ previous exhibit space will allow the zoo to introduce two new species, the clouded leopard and the ocelot, in the future.
Art Pearce, whose family donated $1 million to help build the habitat, says attractions such as the Big Cats of Arizona differentiate the Phoenix Zoo and hopefully catch the eye of tourists who will want to visit.

“Of course, the African lions and the tigers from other parts of the country are wonderful to see, and all the zoos have those,” he says. “But not all zoos have an American jaguar and a mountain lion.”

According to the Arizona Office of Tourism, a report from 2023 concluded that more than 45 million people visited Arizona and collectively spent $29.3 billion dollars in the state. The money supported jobs and added revenue, with $4.2 billion in tax revenue equaling an annual tax savings of almost $900 for Arizona households. The zoo, a nonprofit organization, is the third most popular tourist attraction in the state, behind Grand Canyon National Park and Glen Canyon Recreation Area, according to the state Office of Tourism. The zoo has about 1.4 million visitors a year.

In addition to the Office of Tourism and the Pearce family, JoEllen Doornbos donated $1 million to the exhibit. Other large donations came from the Evelyn and Lou Grubb family, the Virginia M. Ullman Foundation, Richard and Susan Burnham and the Salt River-Pima Maricopa Indian Community.

For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.