Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by Katie Remine, Living Northwest Conservation Coordinator and Bobbi Miller, Wildlife Conservation Manager Just because we’re practicing physical distancing, doesn’t mean we can’t do our bit for wildlife and the great outdoors! There are still plenty of ways you can engage in conservation actions right from your living room or backyard. Woodland Park Zoo’s Wildlife Conservation staff invite you to join them as a wildlife conservationist with these five activities you can do from the comfort of your couch (or hammock)! A Seattle Urban Carnivore Project motion sensor remote camera documents a group of raccoons in the greater Seattle region. Photo courtesy of Seattle Urban Carnivore Project / Woodland Park Zoo and Seattle University. 1) Report your sightings of urban carnivores Woodland Park Zoo and Seattle University’s Seattle Urban Carnivore Project explores how mammalian carnivores, such as coyotes, foxes, raccoons, bobcats, and even cougars and bears live and inte...

Come to the zoo this Saturday, April 14 for Spring Safari! Posted by Bobbi Miller, Conservation We're excited to see you at this year's Spring Safari. Here are 5 activities we think will get you pumped for an awesome day of conservation, animal encounters and springtime fun: Giraffe and friends, photo by Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren, Woodland Park Zoo 1. Learn about Woodland Park Zoo’s conservation programs in Africa! Check out how we’re working to save gorillas, giraffes, lions and more. The day will be filled with keeper talks and special treats for the animals in our African Savanna. Start the day by watching as our lions get a special meaty treat at 10 a.m. Come to our hippo talk with enrichment at 11:30 a.m., and don’t forget the giraffe experience—for $5 you can get up close from 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. with our tallest residents. You can find a full list of all our keeper talks and enrichments here: https://www.zoo.org/events Benny, a Washington Department of Fis...

Posted by Kirsten Pisto, Communications Bear Affair: Living Northwest Conservation Day is one of our favorite events. Each year in early June, we get to do what we love best: watch our animals enjoy a special day tailored just to them and watch our visitors fall in love with those same animals, learn more about conservation actions they can take right here in the Pacific Northwest, and become stewards for protecting wildlife in Washington. It's also a day we get to celebrate the incredible work our conservation colleagues are doing too, as many of our peers join us by setting up learning opportunities that start on the North Meadow and wind all the way through Northern Trail. Our volunteers come out on this day, as do ZooCorps teens, and everyone from our horticulture staff (providing beautiful flowers for the mock wedding cake and arch) to our dedicated keepers who make sure the animals have a great day (without eating too many coffee grounds or cake). It doesn't get any bet...

Posted by: Bobbi Miller, WPZ Field Conservation Coordinator with Stephanie Fennessy, Giraffe Conservation Foundation Director Out in the field, conservationists watch the giraffe and the giraffe watch back. Photo courtesy GCF.  Here at Woodland Park Zoo we’re all twitterpated about the impending birth of Seattle’s tallest baby . But we’re not the only folks waiting for the giraffe calf. Halfway across the world, in Windhoek, Namibia, Steph and Julian Fennessey are anxiously awaiting word of our new arrival. As founders of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation , a Woodland Park Zoo Wildlife Survival Fund project, they are working to understand and save the remaining giraffe in the wild. It’s a daunting task, but the birth of Tufani’s wee one (if you can call a 6 foot, 150 pound baby a “wee one”) gives them hope for the remaining giraffes in the wild. With every giraffe born in an Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited zoo, more people become aware of the plight of gira...

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: Bobbi Miller, Conservation Their gentle but steady gait across the African savanna would seem to indicate the land’s tallest mammal hasn’t a care in the world. With a neck and legs that help to elevate it to anywhere between 14 and 17 feet tall, the giraffe snacks from the tops of acacia trees and should easily be able to see predators approaching on the savanna. Angolan giraffe are well adapted to their harsh desert environment. Photo by Julian & Steph Fennessy But giraffe are under increasing pressure in their homeland, causing their population numbers to have dropped by more than 40% over the past decade and a half. Despite the fact they can run at speeds of 31 miles an hour for a sustained period, they can’t seem to outrun the threats that are impacting the 9 known subspecies. In particular, giraffe are subject to poaching, disease, fragmentation and degradation leading to loss of habitat, and the expansion of human populations. Today, when you add up al...

Posted by: Cassie Freund, Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program, and Bobbi Miller, Woodland Park Zoo Field Conservation In honor of Orangutan Caring Week, we share this powerful story coming from our Partner for Wildlife: Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program (GPOCP) out of Indonesia. This story chronicles the rescue of four endangered orangutans, and what will happen to them now. Rescued orangutan, Bob. Photo courtesy of International Animal Rescue. It is estimated that there are just over 50,000 Bornean orangutans left in the wild, although numbers are decreasing daily. Orangutans are the largest arboreal animals on the face of the earth today, but they are quickly losing habitat to mining and conversion of land for agriculture, namely palm oil . As habitat is lost, orangutans have nowhere to go, often ending up in the hands of local community members to be kept as pets. Remaining pockets of orangutan habitat are easily accessible from local villages and oran...

Posted by: Bobbi Miller, Field Conservation Female jaguar, Nayla, at Woodland Park Zoo. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. To look at a jaguar —its massive jaws, its muscular body—one would think nothing could take it down. But the jaguar faces very real threats: man-made ones. Threatened in its native Americas, the jaguar is declining in numbers due to loss of habitat and conflict with humans. The two issues are connected, as hungry jaguars living in reduced habitats wander into human-occupied land in search of food, particularly in the form of cattle ranches. Jaguar Cove exhibit at Woodland Park Zoo. Photo by Mat Hayward/Woodland Park Zoo. Thanks to a generous bequest, the Jaguar Conservation Fund  was established in 2003 by Woodland Park Zoo to support field conservation efforts for jaguars. The Fund’s goal is to support projects that lead directly to conservation of jaguars and their habitat by incorporating conservation, education, and research components, ...