Northwest Trek surpasses projected annual attendance

Northwest Trek Wildlife Park has already sailed past its projected attendance this year.

Officials estimated 182,000 people would visit the 725-acre park near Eatonville in 2015.

The park passed that mark on Labor Day, and by the end of the three-day weekend, yearly attendance hit 183,286.

“This year turned out to be a little different than we anticipated, which is a good thing,” said Alan Varsik, the park’s deputy director. “We’ve really been scratching our heads to figure out why we’ve seen what we have.”

Officials have a few theories.

One is the warmer weather. Another is that more people came out to celebrate Northwest Trek’s 40th anniversary, which was July 17.

Varsik thinks it has something to do with the number of baby animals born at the park. Spring brought five bison calves, three bighorn sheep lambs, four elk calves, one caribou fawn and one moose calf.

The moose, later named Willow, was born on Northwest Trek’s anniversary.

She has garnered a lot of attention from visitors who take the tram through the Free-Roaming Area, where Willow lives with her mother, Connie; father, Ellis, and a third adult moose.

Willow is the first moose born in the park in the last 15 years.

No matter the cause, park employees are excited about the increased attendance and hopeful the trend continues.

More visitors means extra revenue to spend on capital projects and animal upkeep.

“We don’t want to overreact to this, but it may influence next year’s projections,” Varsik said.

“We can anticipate that next spring the opening of Kid’s Trek, a nature-themed play area, may provide incentive for people to come visit.”

Projected annual attendance is based on the prior year’s turnout.

Northwest Trek’s highest attendance was in 1994, when 214,196 people came. That was the year bear exhibits opened to the public.

This story was originally published September 14, 2015 at 11:05 AM with the headline "Northwest Trek surpasses projected annual attendance."