ATLANTA - A $3 million donation by the Ford Motor Co. will go a long way to ease a budget shortfall at Zoo Atlanta, but the zoo is not out of the rain forest yet. <br>
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Officials need to raise at least $1 million more to add to this year's $16 million operating budget. <br>
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The Ford gift will pay for a face-lift for the zoo's Ford African Rain Forest, a 6-acre manmade exhibit sponsored by the corporation. <br>
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The money also will be used to landscape other animal exhibits, improve the World of Reptiles and renovate pathways and the irrigation system throughout the zoo, officials said Friday in announcing the donation. <br>
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``I'm very grateful,'' Zoo president Terry L. Maple said as he, Mayor Shirley Franklin and Ford chief of staff John Rintamaki made the announcement. <br>
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``Those are things that would have had to wait without Ford's help,'' Maple said. <br>
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The zoo received $5.7 million earlier this spring from a group of donors to help pay the debt from two pandas and improvements to other facilities. <br>
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Still, the budget is projected to break even if it can get another $1 million and can take in $1.2 million at its largest annual fund-raiser, the Beastly Beast. <br>
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``We're operating fine with the money we have, but if we don't get that money, we'll be operating at a deficit,'' Maple said. <br>
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The zoo hopes to stimulate attendance with new attractions, including twin lemurs, a drill born just weeks ago and a baby gorilla expected any day now. <br>
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A dwelling for Bongo antelope, which will benefit from the Ford gift, and two tiger cubs should debut in about six weeks. <br>
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In addition, the zoo will open a new children's area in the fall. <br>
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Ford, which has an assembly plant here, donated $500,000 in seed money to construct the rain forest habitat shortly after the zoo was privatized in the mid-1980s. <br>
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Since it opened 14 years ago, it has been one of the most popular attractions. The habitat houses 22 gorillas, including the offspring of the zoo's Willie B., who died in 2000. <br>
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The rain forest also includes a gorilla conservation center, the Monkeys of Makokou exhibit featuring West African drills and mona monkeys, and the Sanaga Overlook, a walk-through aviary with colorful birds.
