Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications We are getting so excited for our ninth annual Bear Affair: Pacific Northwest Conservation day presented by Brown Bear Car Wash on June 8! At Woodland Park Zoo’s Bear Affair, 700-pound grizzly bear brothers, Keema and Denali, show us why it is important to be bear-safe in the Pacific Northwest. Whether you are hiking and camping in the mountains or simply spending the summer in your own backyard, being bear-safe can help protect you and your family as well as keep our Northwest wildlife safe. Woodland Park Zoo teamed up with local singer Star Anna to create a song about our favorite bear-safety tips. Rock out to the song this summer and remember the rules! Don’t leave those treats out: dog food, bird seed ( in the winter), barbecue scraps, camping dishes and snacks, anything that smells tasty such as toothpaste, deodorant, sunscreen and hairspray can be an attractant for bears. Clean it up! They sniff for garbage: A bear-

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications As we gear up for the May 4th opening of phase one of our new Bamboo Forest Reserve exhibit, some of the details are starting to blossom! Here is a little sneak peek at the landscape horticulture elements that are part of the new exhibit. It’s all about landscape simulation—the zoo’s horticulture department seeks out plants that will thrive in our Pacific Northwest environment, while mimicking the flora found in the thick forests of Southeast Asia. Shaping a new exhibit’s greenery has three key components: 1.) the comfort and safety of the animals, 2.) allowing visitors to observe our animals in an environment inspired by natural habitats, 3.) and telling clearly the story of the entire biome, its diverse plant and animal species, and its conservation connections. Our horticulture team helps tell the conservation story of sharing the forest; the health of the forest being dependent on all its wildlife, from the fiercest tiger to the tinie

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications When you enter the new Bamboo Forest Reserve exhibit , your eyes might go directly to the otters , but it won’t be long before your ears pick up one of the other highlights of the exhibit—a sonorous aviary filled with the chirps, warbles and songs of five Asian tropical bird species. Nicobar pigeon. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. To find the birds, you’ll want to look up, down and all around the aviary, as the birds will be everywhere from high in the trees to low in the bushes. You’ll encounter the collared finchbill, white-rumped shama thrush, great argus, red-billed leiothrix and Nicobar pigeon. Great argus. Photo by Mat Hayward/Woodland Park Zoo. The five bird species are a loquacious crew and are host to an array of flamboyant plumage. From the call of the great argus as he prepares a spectacular dance for his mate to the sparkling metallic green feathers of the Nicobar pigeon, from the delicate porcelain songs of t

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications Everyone has heard of an army of ants or a flock of birds, but how about a pounce of cats? A business of ferrets, a bloat of hippopotamuses, and my favorite, a float of crocodiles! A company of budgies hangs out at Willawong Station. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. It seems as if there are as many bizarre collective nouns as there are animals to describe. An ambush of tigers, a tower of giraffes, a gam of whales, a charm of magpies! So, why do we have so many unique collective names for animals? I mean, do we really need to say “There was a gaze of raccoons on my porch this morning”? And is there anything scientific about these terms? A mob of meerkats! Photo by Ryan Hawk/ Woodland Park Zoo. Giving groups of animals a special name has been a tradition since the late Middle Ages. (Might explain dray of squirrels). A lot of the blame for these bizarre words was given to prioress Dame Juliana Berners, a nun and writer, w

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications/Public Affairs Photo provided by Somali Community Services Coalition We believe that every kid (and kid at heart) should have access to their local zoo. In 2012, Woodland Park Zoo’s Community Access Program (CAP) partnered with 700 local human service organizations who offered their clients more than 40,000 complimentary passes to Woodland Park Zoo.   Photo from Academy for Precision Learning with middle school students on a field trip at Woodland Park Zoo this past summer. Thanks to support from zoo visitors and zoo members, we are able to reach out to folks in our community who would not otherwise be able to visit. The partner organizations determine how passes are distributed, serving homeless shelters, food banks, senior centers and homes, refugee communities, minority programs, disabled and mental health facilities, low-income youth centers, education programs and more. We are extremely proud of this program and wa

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications WildLights presented by KeyBank —the zoo's first winter lights festival—premieres next week, but we've been daydreaming about sugarplums and snowflakes for months in preparation for the big debut. You can say we’ve been hit with the WildLights bug—Twinkleitus—ever since we saw the preliminary sketches of our zoo lit up with 375,000 sparkling LED lights! A sneak peek at some of the sparkle. It takes a lot of hard work to build such an elaborate lights display, so John Evans, the zoo's guy in charge of this entire operation, assembled a group of LED artisans who blew our socks off with their ingenuity and resourcefulness. A lot of these folks have backgrounds in theater design, carpentry and sculpture, but one of them is even a stuntman from Hollywood. The pop up workshop was full of grinding, drilling, sawing, and lots of ear plugs. The crew worked all summer building flapping flamingos, flying frogs and even a gracef

Posted by Caileigh Robertson and Kirsten Pisto, Communications Yesterday, animals across the zoo were given enrichment in honor of Sounders fever! The zoo’s own line-up of animals gave it their all at a kicking exhibition to cheer on the Sounders heading to the MLS Cup playoffs. Here’s the rundown… In a pre-game scrimmage, our colony of penguins had a ball with their Sounders gear! Back and forth across the pool, the penguins porpoised through the water and dribbled with their beaks. Along the Northern Trail, Denali and Keema defended their Sounders soccer balls in good old-fashioned bear-to-bear defense. There were no passes to be made.  Keema and Denali held the defensive and both earned yellow cards for carrying the ball! At the other end of the Northern Trail, our wolves chased the Sounders ball between the trees and down the slope of their exhibit. Now if we can just get them to pass the ball or do anything other than bite into