Statistic I find most surprising: 175,000,000 people visit the zoo annually.
I find this statistic the most interesting. Combined with the fact that there are 142 accredited zoos, this is quite fascinating. With what feels like so few zoos, I would have expected there to be less people going to the zoo that often.
On the other hand, every time I have visited the zoo it has been full of people. Based on the zoo closest to me I would think that in each day there would be a couple hundred people visiting per day. However, with so few zoos, it's incredible how the zoos seem to attract so many of us yearly.