The booming economy meant a very good year for Dublin Zoo in 1998, with 525,000 tickets sold to the Phoenix Park attraction despite "very poor weather".
The increase of almost 4 per cent on the previous year's attendance meant gate receipts in the last financial year totalled £1.5 million, according to the zoo's report published yesterday. Last August almost 130,000 people visited the animals.
Reporting a financial surplus for the second year running, the zoo authorities said they faced the future with great confidence, thanks to the State's economic growth and the Government's support for the zoo's £15 million development plan.
The development will feature a savannah-style "African Plains" area for larger animals, on 13 hectares of land given by Aras an Uachtarain.
However, 1998 was a mixed year for the zoo's animals. While the health of most animals was "satisfactory", two had to be put down. One was a 24-year-old female Bactrian camel which was found to have a large tumour in its rib-cage. It was "euthanased", the report said. The camel had lived in the zoo since 1977 and produced 11 offspring from two different males.
A sealion in its late 30s, which had been blind for many years, was the other. Though it still knew its way around its pool and environment "extremely well" it became reluctant to feed, lost a lot of weight and had to be put down.
The female flamingos failed to breed and all last year's black swan cygnets died because of the harsh weather, the report said. A premature baby gorilla also died shortly after birth.
Despite the imminent completion of the African Plains, the authorities have given up on their two female giraffes ever giving birth. Grainne, at 20, was "probably post-reproduction". The other was of a nervous disposition and it seemed unlikely it would ever breed.
There were some breeding successes in the Phoenix Park last year: the reptile house celebrated the first-ever species of snake to be born there. The South African mole snake gave birth to 84 live young. Rodrigues fruit bats, snow leopards and primates also bred successfully. Meerkats, Asian short-clawed otters and Tamworth pigs also thrived.
