Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Kerston Swartz, Public Affairs Proceeds from the Save Vanishing Species stamp go to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Wildlife Without Borders program. We're grateful in this digital age that some of you still send handwritten letters. That's because your Save Vanishing Species Stamp purchases from the U.S. Postal Service have just made it possible for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to award nearly $50,000 to the Woodland Park Zoo-Panthera Malayan Tiger Conservation Project and Rimba , our in-country field partner. The new funding will enhance our anti-poaching efforts in Peninsular Malaysia. We have yet to discover a wild tiger roaming the United States, but that doesn’t stop the USFWS from caring about their fight against extinction. Recognizing the critical role humans play in endangered species survival and the growing need for collaboration among countries, the USFWS created the Wildlife Without Borders program to provide grants for intern...

Posted by: Bobbi Miller, Field Conservation, Woodland Park Zoo and Kae Kawanishi, PhD, MYCAT Saving tigers is a complicated business. It’s not enough for researchers and conservationists just to know where the tigers are. Saving them requires knowing how many there are, where and how they travel, what their prey base is, how to sustain them and what the imminent threats are to their survival. From this vast database of knowledge comes one obvious fact: the tigers need to have a place to live and a way to safely move from place to place. Enter Woodland Park Zoo Wildlife Survival Fund partner Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (MYCAT) and their recent Rewilding of the Sungai Yu Reforestation project. The project is a component of the Sungai Yu Tiger Corridor Conservation Program, which is striving to return wildlife and forests to the Sungai Yu tiger corridor in Peninsular Malaysia. During her doctoral work, Kae Kawanishi, MYCAT General Manager and Head of Conservation, ide...

Posted by: Fred Koontz, PhD, Vice President of Field Conservation In my last blog post, you read a story about my recent trip to Malaysia , which included a visit to our Harimau Selamanya (“Tigers Forever”) conservation project area. As I wrote to you, I left feeling daunted at the sheer scale of resources needed to save the critically endangered Malayan tiger, yet hopeful about our collective power to save them, together. Malaysia's Greater Taman Negara Region spans 3 million acres, three times the size of Washington's Olympic National Park. Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo. The Good News:  Our efforts are working! Woodland Park Zoo's partnership with Panthera, the international wild cat conservancy, and Malaysian non-profit Rimba combines resources to stop the illegal killing of tigers. In just two years, rangers from Malaysia's Department of Wildlife and National Parks, with support from our team of 14 dedicated researchers ...

Posted by: Fred W. Koontz, PhD, Vice President of Field Conservation Photos by: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo except where noted Taman Negara National Park. Each year, I travel to Malaysia to meet with colleagues working on Malayan tiger conservation. These trips are essential for good partner communications and ensuring the zoo’s field support is effectively placed. But my most recent visit in June was something quite different. This time, I traveled to Malaysia with 13 of the nation's top tiger zookeepers in tow, including those from National Zoo, Brookfield Zoo, San Francisco Zoo and Zoo Miami, to name just a few. The group included Woodland Park Zoo tiger keeper, Christine Anne, who had been eagerly  preparing for this trip for what seemed like a long time. Christine knew this was an opportunity to see tiger habitat, learn about threats to their survival, discuss conservation solutions with tiger experts and meet local people sharing land with big cats. Equ...

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Editor Malayan tigers are on a thin line between here and gone, but there is hope. If we protect their habitat and keep them out of the hands of poachers, tiger populations can rebound. On a recent trip, Woodland Park Zoo animal care, field conservation and communications staff joined a MYCAT volunteer patrol deep in the tiger’s forest realm. They placed a 360° camera in one of the planet’s most ancient rain forests to show you what’s at stake. Use the controls to peer around this slice of tiger habitat located in a critical wildlife corridor along the edge of Taman Negara, Malaysia’s premier national park. Video: 360° View of Malaysian Tiger Forest.  NOTE: 360°-view enabled browser required to explore full view of the video. The fact that you can barely see much in the distance is a good thing—the density of this forest supports incredible diversity of life. When we fight to protect tiger forests, we’re saving the home of so many more, from ...

Posted by: Alissa Wolken, Communications Inspired by Star Wars Day, May 4, we'd like to share our own epic tale filled with action, drama and high stakes. This story is far from a fantasy however, as it highlights the very real plight facing tigers all over the world. But there’s reason for a new hope thanks to an alliance known as the Tiger Team! Join the alliance today and “May the Fourth Be With You!”

Every tiger life is precious, which is why we are very sad to share news about the deaths of three tigers in Peninsular Malaysia. Two tigers were discovered with poachers and the third, a mother pregnant with two cubs, was killed from a collision with a moving vehicle. When Woodland Park Zoo first turned its focus to tiger conservation in 2012, scientists estimated 500 Malayan tigers were left in the wild.  Just four years later, with better data and increased poaching, we believe only about 300 remain. With numbers that low, the loss of three tigers underlines the importance of protecting each individual tiger. Surprisingly, our field partners have found a nugget of encouraging news in this otherwise discouraging report.  Some background: you may recall from previous Tiger Team reports Woodland Park Zoo and Panthera’s Malayan Tiger Conservation Partnership conserves critically endangered Malayan tigers and forests by mitigating threats in the 3.7-million-acre Greater Ta...

Earlier this year, the Malaysian Government’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) released a heartwarming video featuring a wild Malayan tiger playing with her rambunctious 5-month-old cub. To most of us, images of a springy cub pouncing on mom are downright adorable, but to conservationists, seeing a vigorous tiger family tells a more important story. The health of mother and cub tells biologists there is sufficient prey for successful reproduction. Locating and protecting adult tigers is only the first conservation step—ensuring that they can raise cubs is the key to a bright tiger future. Welcoming the new year with good news about Malayan Tigers from Jabatan PERHILITAN on Vimeo . Credit: Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) Peninsular Malaysia If you have been following our Tiger Team updates , you already know Malayan tigers face serious threats to survival, specifically from wildlife poaching and widespread habitat loss. In some communities, t...

Posted by: Lavaniadevi Gopalakrishnan, Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (MYCAT), a grantee of Woodland Park Zoo's Wildlife Survival Fund Editor’s Note: Adapted from an article originally published in MYCAT Tracks: The Malaysian Tiger’s Struggle for Existence, Vol  5 2014. Woodland Park Zoo and MYCAT collaborate to enhance tiger and rain forest conservation in Peninsular Malaysia. In June 2016,  14 Association of Zoos & Aquariums tiger keepers, including WPZ’s Christine Anne, will travel to Malaysia to participate in a special CAT Walk designed for zoo professionals. CAT Walk volunteers supplement official anti-poaching patrols. Photo: Fred Koontz/Woodland Park Zoo.  Footsteps echo in the forest. A group of people hike in a single line along a logging road, their eyes scrutinising the trail for something. They are seen almost every weekend here, in a relatively unknown part of the Malaysian forest, occasionally even spending the night in the fo...