Wonders of Wildlife attendance up from 2002

Wonders of Wildlife kicked off the year with some new ideas aimed at bolstering attendance.

The American National Fish and Wildlife museum held three appreciation weekends in January that helped increase attendance by 2,138 visitors for the month, compared to 2002 numbers. Total attendance was 28,289 for January, an average of 913 people per day.

The museum's budget projects 465,000 visitors in 2003, an average of 1,277 per day.

For the first appreciation weekend held Jan. 10-12, Springfield residents were admitted for $5. On the weekends of Jan. 17-19 and Jan. 24-26, area residents were admitted for $5. The normal adult admission fee is $11.25 for adults.

"We are obviously quite pleased with the response by our community neighbors, who had an opportunity to see and experience WOW first-hand," said Fred Marty, executive director of Wonders of Wildlife. "We hope that, through this visit, their positive word-of-mouth endorsement will generate future visits by friends, family and out-of-town guests. And we look forward to having our community neighbors themselves return to WOW to see what's new."

The area appreciation weekend was open to anybody living or working in Barry, Christian, Dade, Dallas, Greene, Lawrence, Polk, Stone, Taney or Webster counties.

The appreciation weekends included special interactive stations where visitors could touch feathers, skulls, bones and pelts. Docents were available to provide more information about the items.

The museum also debuted the "Read a River" interactive exhibit where kids could touch live minnows and crawfish. Wonders of Wildlife also opened its live, blind crayfish exhibit in tumbling creek cave.

Sandy Z. Poneleit, public relations manager, said the museum staff did some informal polling of visitors during the weekends.

"They really gave us a lot of positive feedback. It worked well for what we had hoped," Poneleit said. "My understanding, from all the conversations we had here, is people really enjoyed it."

Wonders of Wildlife also has modified some of its pricing structure.

Anyone who has a current Missouri hunting or fishing license will be given a discount for themselves and all members of their party. The license-holder discount price is $9 for adults and $5.75 for children.

Wonders of Wildlife also is offering free educational programs each Monday in February. From 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., the museum will offer presentations that will include interaction with animals. The programs are Creepy Crawlies on Feb. 10; Flights of Fancy on Feb. 17; and Reptiles and Amphibians on Feb. 24.