With its new African Journey exhibit drawing herds of people, the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo finished the year with an all-time, single-season attendance record of 610,949 people, the zoo said in a news release.

The total is nearly 70,000 higher than the previous record of 541,399 set in 1996, the year it opened the Tiger Forest exhibit within the then-2-year-old Indonesian Rain Forest area.

“This has been a very exciting year for everyone affiliated with the zoo,” Zoo Director Jim Anderson said in the news release.

Annual attendance figures include the regular season from late April through mid-October and the Great Zoo Halloween in late October.

The $9 million African Journey exhibit opened June 6 and includes a number of animals never before exhibited at the zoo, including adult lions and hyenas. It also features a feeding tower that allows visitors to hand-feed lettuce to giraffes.

Zoo visitors came from at least 40 states this year, and more than 62 percent of the visitors came from outside Allen County, the news release said.

Those results are based on a survey of 3,693 license plates on vehicles in the zoo's parking lots in June, July, and August.

The zoo, which is self-supporting and receives no tax dollars for operation, now is closed until reopening next year for the regular season on April 24.