Posted by Craig Newberry, Communications Photos by Craig Newberry, Woodland Park Zoo A new pollinator garden to support thriving butterflies, bees and birds was unveiled June 22 at the Washington State Capitol Campus in Olympia. The garden was created in partnership between the Office of Governor Jay Inslee, Washington Department of Enterprise Services (DES), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Washington Department of Agriculture (WSDA), Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ), and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Erin Sullivan speaks at the unveiling of the capitol pollinator garden. The garden features pollinator-attracting plants to provide food, water and shelter to pollinators, and has beautiful signage that informs visitors about the critical role of pollinators and how to attract and protect them. It covers a combined space of roughly 1,000 square feet in the heart of the Capitol Campus over the 14th Ave. tunnel. The garden will provide a peaceful and quiet spo
Posted by Elizabeth Bacher, Communications Photos by Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren Co-WHAT-i is a coati? Hello, cutie coati! If you’ve visited the recently reopened Tropical Rain Forest building, you may have noticed a couple fresh faces there! A pair of white-nosed coatis, Onix and Pearl, are the first of their species to live at Woodland Park Zoo. The white-nosed coati (pronounced ko-WAT-tee) is one of several recognized species of coatis. It is a house cat-sized mammal that looks a little like a raccoon—no surprise since they’re related and share the same taxonomic family classification. In the wild, the habitat of the white-nosed coati includes tropical and sub-tropical broadleaf forests ranging from Arizona down through Mexico and Central America and very top of South America. They’re not considered to be endangered in most of their range, but scientists believe their populations are decreasing due to habitat loss and deforestation. White-nosed coati, Onix, explores his new habitat. Coati