The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
The published series, 2010–2025
Lead: The zoo publishes its own attendance, and the series is printed here whole, as the zoo gives it — round figures where the zoo rounds them, exact figures where it counts them: 2010, 185,000; 2011, 198,000; 2012, 203,898; 2013, 205,758; 2014, 207,000 — the year the society took over; 2015, 219,667; 2016, 232,125 — the master-plan year; 2017, 236,452; 2018, 207,384; 2019, 211,303; 2020, 188,000, in the season that did not open until 14 June; 2021, 274,563 — the centennial year, and the first great jump; 2022, 316,030; 2023, 351,628 — past the master plan's 350,000 goal; 2024, 361,626; and 2025, 409,776, the all-time record, confirmed as a record by the Tribune, with the new Zoo Luminate nights bringing, by the director's figure, more than 80,000 visitors beyond the daytime count. In sixteen seasons the zoo more than doubled. Two other tellings of the crowds stand in the record and are attributed rather than merged: at the January 2020 tax-board hearing the director reported 220,000 visitors, eighty employees in the busy season, 2,800 volunteer hours, and the zoo's standing as the second most popular attraction in South Bend — his round numbers, spoken a few months before the zoo's published table fixed 2019 at 211,303 — and the IEDC's 2018 entry-plaza release stated that attendance had grown five percent annually since 2004, the agency's claim for the pre-series years, printed as its claim. Before 2010 the zoo publishes no series in the sources reached here; the counting itself, as the admission entry above tells, only became exact in 1981.
Sources:
- Potawatomi Zoo, published attendance table (potawatomizoo.org, observed November 2026): the 2010–2025 series as printed.
- Minutes, St. Joseph County Board of Managers for Hotel-Motel Tax, 22 January 2020 (Sisk's reported 220,000 visitors, 80 seasonal employees, 2,800 volunteer hours; second most popular attraction in South Bend).
- Indiana Economic Development Corporation, release, September 2018 (attendance growth of 5 percent annually since 2004, as the release states it).
- South Bend Tribune, 2025–2026 coverage (the 2025 attendance record; Zoo Luminate's 80,000 additional visitors).