Thanks in part to popular new attractions, the Woodland Park Zoo is boasting its highest attendance ever for July, preceded by its best attended June in more than a decade, said Jim Bennett, communications and marketing director for the zoo.

The zoo opened two new exhibits this summer: Zoomazium, an indoor, all-season, nature play space, and an antique, historic carousel. Early on, Zoomazium drew about 80 percent of the zoo's daily visitors, but that's dropped to a more manageable 70 percent, said Bennett.

"It's really a revolutionary concept," he said. "We recognize nature deficit disorder. Kids don't get out as much as they used to-climbing trees and spending time with nature-they're more urbanized nowadays. We think children learn best when they are playing."

Created to meet the zoo's goal to open an exhibit dedicated to childhood learning and providing more year-round options for visitors, "Zoomazium is not just another exhibit," said Bennett. Children learn about the relationship between climate and living organisms through hands-on projects that explore different bioclimatic zones, such as mountains and the rainforest.

"It's supposed to introduce children to nature and prepare them for visiting the zoo," said Bennett. "The kids get very excited about it."

Zoomazium is the first "regional attraction" exhibit the zoo has opened in a few years, mostly because of associated development and marketing costs. Creating more year-round facilities like Zoomazium is part of the zoo's long-range plan to increase attendance in the fall and winter months when the weather is gloomy and so is zoo turnout, said Bennett.

A restored 1918 antique carousal has also helped attendance this year. Running through Oct.1, the classic, hand-carved wooden carousel ride is not quite completed. The zoo is working on raising money during the next several months to complete the carousel pavilion.

More than 180,000 people visited the Woodland Park Zoo this July, 8,000 more than last July. In June, the zoo experienced its biggest attendance since 1996. The numbers aren't yet in for August, which is usually the zoo's best-attended month, said Bennett.

"Overall, we're predicting more visitors this year than last, but not a huge increase," he said.

Attendance has been flat during the past five years, partly because it took several years for the zoo to push its long-term development plan through the Seattle City Council, which required two environmental impact statements.

Bennett said perhaps another reason for the flat turnout is the lack of public transportation routes to the zoo. Just one King County Metro Transit route provides service to the zoo. Only about 4 percent of zoo visitors use alternative transportation to get there, said Bennett.

To try and change that, this past spring the zoo piloted a shuttle program with Metro. A shuttle ran from the Northgate, Kirkland and Kent Park and rides for the zoo's annual Macy's Mom & Me at the Zoo event. Of the 14,000 people that came that day about 420 took the shuttle.

To provide that service for just one day, it cost the zoo about $10 per person, said Bennett.