Clouds moved in with a sudden rain, cooling things off and energizing the animals on Tuesday afternoon at the Honolulu Zoo.

The lioness, rarely to be seen in hot weather, sat out in the open and gazed back at visitors; the tigress stalked in brisk circles; the orangutan pulled a canopy over his head; gibbons swung; and baboons hurled stones.

Between 2 and 4 p.m., about 75 visitors could be seen wending through the lush, green environment.

Having occupied 42 acres in Kapiolani Park for 85 years, however, the zoo was showing signs of wear: weeds choked off some landscaping and obscured some views of animal habitats and Diamond Head, while large, fenced-off areas swathed in black also blocked views and added to an unkempt air.

“It looks like they’re struggling,” said Honolulu resident Erik Burian, when asked how the zoo looked to him. “It looks like they’re trying to do a lot with only a few people.”

But from the viewpoint of Linda Santos, the zoo’s director, the venerable institution is reemerging after struggling through pandemic closures and drop-offs in visitor numbers, a temporary loss of accreditation, a grueling city audit and forging ahead with major capital improvements.

“We’re very pleased with the support we’re getting from the city administration and Department of Enterprise Services, and the nonprofit Honolulu Zoological Society, which (helps fund) our staff training and educational mission,” Santos said in an interview at the zoo administration office Tuesday.

The zoo’s fiscal year 2023 budget projected a “slight increase over FY2022 in current expenses for deferred and preventative maintenance needs,” DES stated in Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s budget, which was presented to the City Council last week.

Other budget highlights, DES noted, included about $4.65 million for zoo capital improvements.

The six-year, capital improvement plan included $650,000 to replace the former duck pond inside the zoo entrance with a Hawaii Island Exhibit comprising a wetland and aviary “that’s being designed right now,” Santos said.

Another $800,000 was slated to “design, construct and inspect sustainable and resilient zoo improvements,” the budget stated; this included renovating the historic Preis Building, designed by Alfred Preis, the architect of the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, and restoring its former function as the zoo’s front entrance, Santos said.

In addition, “we’re replacing the animal barn roofs and taking down the old bird building, which is from the 1970s and not open to the public — and the new aviary will have a glass window that will let people view the egg propagation center.”

The zoo plans to add a new food concession, “and we’re hoping the black fencing in front of the new, glass tiger portal will be removed this week,” Santos added.

The biggest ticket item was $3.2 million to upgrade, design, construct and inspect sustainable and resilient improvements to the zoo’s water infrastructure, “which we haven’t invested in since the 1940s.”

Although wells provide brackish water to irrigate the grounds, Santos said animals and people need fresh water, and it was not sustainable for an organization with a conservation mission to have frequent water line breaks, including a major one that recently closed off Paki Ave.

The city’s total zoo budget for fiscal 2023 is $7.34 million, up from $7.25 million for fiscal 2022, and $6.83 million in fiscal 2021.

The zoo also receives in-kind and cash contributions from the Honolulu Zoological Society, which included, in the most recent figures provided by the city for this article, $530,898 in fiscal 2021.

Reflecting pandemic closures and visitor numbers, zoo revenues were $279,328 with visitor attendance of 31,956 for the 2020-21 fiscal year, compared with $3.33 million from 387,103 visitors in 2019-20, and $4.96 million with 569,049 visitors in 2018-19.

THINGS have been hectic, sometimes sad but also rewarding, Santos said, since she took over as director in 2017, a year after the zoo lost its accreditation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. In November 2016, Oahu residents gave the zoo a show of faith by voting to adopt an amendment to the City Charter dedicating 0.5% of annual property tax revenues to a special zoo fund.

Her first task was to win accreditation back, which she achieved in 2020, only to have to close the zoo in March due to COVID-19, “while of course we kept everything in operation to support the animals,” and reopening that June with restrictions and a limited schedule.

Then a lot of Santos’ time was taken up by a city audit going back to 2016, and making sure the zoo successfully met the standards for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Class C Exhibition license last year.

And she regularly lends a hand helping out the other staff, through whose ranks she rose from animal food preparer in 1986 to animal keeper, bird and elephant curator, and on up.

Santos was still flushed from the heat, she said with a smile, from climbing on the aviary roof before her Honolulu Star-Advertiser interview on Tuesday.

The zoo currently has approximately 78 staff members and 800 animals. Recent attrition in the animal population includes the deaths of the male lion, Ekundu, from COVID-19 in December; and of both black rhinos, in December and March, from complications of advanced age.

But twin baby lemurs were born in the zoo during its 2020 pandemic closure, when two giraffes also arrived from the Albuquerque Zoo, and the zoo is searching for a new male lion companion for Moxy, the elderly lioness, and for a new tiger couple of breeding age.

And zoo compost is provided free to the community based on availability.

In the short and long term, Santos said, “We’re just trying to get the zoo moving forward and improve the guest experience a lot.”

As the zoo approached its 4 p.m. closing hour, young families left the popular playground and paused on their way out to say goodbye to the pacing tiger, Chrissie.

Asked what distinguished Honolulu Zoo from others they had seen, “we really like the wild peacocks and chickens,” said Cory Gough, a Washington, D.C., resident who was staying in Honolulu with his family for a few months and had bought a year membership to the zoo “because we plan to come here a lot.”

“I like the Kamehameha butterflies and the native Hawaiian plant species,” said Yu Gough, his wife, holding up their son, Joseph, 10 months, in a butterfly-print onesie from the zoo gift shop.

As he pushed his father in a wheelchair towards the exit, Burian said he was struck by how few visitors he’d seen that afternoon, and wondered if the lack of visitors might reflect a changing attitude.

“The sentiment for keeping animals in cages is not what it was a few years ago,” Burian said.

On the other hand, as Santos said, the mission of Honolulu Zoo and many others includes educating the public about wildlife and natural resource conservation.

As of December, there were 238 accredited zoos and aquariums in 13 countries worldwide, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums website.

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Star-Advertiser staffer Craig Kojima contributed reporting for this article.