Zoo Atlanta is an AZA-accredited wildlife park and major attraction in Atlanta, Georgia. The 40 acre (16 hectare) zoo, founded in 1889, is located in Atlanta's Grant Park and attracts around one million visitors a year. The zoo features almost 1,000 animals representing 250 species from around the world.
Among the zoo's most notable holdings are two giant pandas, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, on loan from China's Chengdu Zoo until 2009. The $4.5 million Ford African Rain Forest habitat is home to 23 western lowland gorillas, one of the two largest collections of the species in North America. The zoo was also home to the popular Willie B., a gorilla named for former Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield (as was the Hartsfield International Airport).
Zoo Atlanta is a participant in the AZA's Species Survival Program with efforts for the red panda, and the sumatran tiger — one of the most endangered species in the world.
The zoo was founded in 1889 as Grant Park Zoo, when local lumber merchant George Gress bought the zoo. Gress also bought the cyclorama painting, "The Battle of Atlanta," which he moved next to the zoo as the Atlanta Cyclorama. For many years, the zoo was for whites only, in keeping with the segregated nature of the South at the time. The Municipal Zoo, as it came to be called, gradually fell into disrepair and in 1984 was named one of the ten worst zoos in the country. Ashamed of this label, Atlanta renamed it Zoo Atlanta and hired a new administrator to rebuild the zoo. Today, the zoo has rebounded and is nationally recognized.
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