Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Kerston Swartz, Advocacy Manager You can help bring this iconic species back to Washington’s North Cascades. Woodland Park Zoo supports grizzly bear restoration in Washington state. You should too. And you don’t even need to put down whatever device you are on right now to make your stance known. Submit a public comment now and tell the government why you want grizzly bears recovered into the North Cascades.  Grizzly bear brothers Keema and Denali. Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo. Let us make the case. It starts right here with two of Washington’s most well-known grizzlies. It’s no surprise Woodland Park Zoo’s grizzly bear brothers, Keema and Denali, are among the most popular animals at the zoo. With their fuzzy ears, lumbering stroll and impressive swimming (OK, more like floating and bobbing) skills, they’re hard not to love.  Despite their lovability, history has not been kind to grizzly bears in Washington state. Durin

Posted by: Gigi Allianic, Communications A zoo research camera catches a glimpse of a wolverine checking out the new scent lure. Photo: Woodland Park Zoo. As part of a Woodland Park Zoo wildlife study, remote cameras and new, innovative scent lure dispensers—created by the zoo, Idaho Fish and Game, and Microsoft Research and installed last winter in Washington’s Cascade Mountains—have successfully captured images of wolverines, a carnivore rarely seen in the wild. Research scientists deploy motion sensor remote cameras and odorous scent attractants to capture images of elusive species such as wolverines, lynx, fishers, cougars, grizzly bears and gray wolves but, in the past, have faced challenges during the winter. Scents naturally fade and need to be refreshed every few weeks, said Robert Long, PhD, a carnivore research ecologist and a senior conservation fellow in Woodland Park Zoo’s field conservation department. “Deep snow and dangerous avalanche conditions in the Cascad

Have you been thinking of going back to school? Are you searching for a way to make a positive difference on the community and environment around you? Now accepting applications, Woodland Park Zoo’s Advanced Inquiry Program (AIP) offers a groundbreaking graduate degree from Miami University focused on inquiry-driven learning as a powerful agent for social and ecological change. Designed for a broad range of professionals, from education and conservation to business and government, AIP could be the next step in your career that you’ve been looking for. Applications are accepted until February 28, 2017 for summer enrollment, and info sessions are coming up: Since the program began in 2011, Woodland Park Zoo’s students and graduates have been enacting amazing environmental stewardship and social change in their communities. We’ve collected some of their stories about how the program has positively impacted their personal and professional lives both locally and globally. Here

Posted by: Jenny Mears, Education Pacific treefrog spotted at Forterra's Hazel Wolf Wetland. Photo: Mike Mallitt.  Yes, YOU can get involved in local amphibian conservation! Woodland Park Zoo has partnered with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) since 2012 to offer Amphibian Monitoring , a citizen science program in which western Washington residents learn how to survey for frogs, toads and salamanders in local ponds and wetlands. We welcome people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds in the program—no science or citizen science experience is necessary! The next Amphibian Monitoring training is Saturday, February 4. At the training you will learn how to find and identify local amphibians in a way that’s safe for people, amphibians and their habitats. Participants will form teams, choose a local wetland or pond, and monitor that site once a month using equipment provided by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, including hip waders, aquascopes and

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Editor Just beyond Molbak's Butterfly Garden, this unassuming building is homebase to the zoo's butterfly conservation efforts. Photo: Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Inside the zoo’s butterfly conservation lab, I squint at the tiny larvae that somehow seem not much larger than the period at the end of this sentence. When I ask Erin Sullivan, Woodland Park Zoo collection manager and entomologist, how big they will get when they become adult butterflies, she demonstrates by pinching the gap between her thumb and index finger. “Pretty big,” she says without irony. In the world of butterflies, size is measured in pinched fingers and adult life expectancy in mere days. In the world of butterfly conservation, however, there is nothing small or short lived about our effort to restore the threatened Oregon silverspot butterfly, a native of our beautiful Northwest. Oregon silverspot butterfly. Photo: Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. For 15

Posted by: Jim Watson, Wildlife Research Scientist, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife & Woodland Park Zoo Living Northwest conservation program Pop Quiz: Scavenger Squad Can you identify each of these typical Northwest scavengers?  Bonus points if you can name which one is the top dog (at least for a few minutes). We'll reveal the answer at the end of this story. Photo: Matt Orr. This past winter we completed the fifth year of our study to investigate the feeding behavior of golden and bald eagles at carrion using remote cameras known as camera traps. Our interest is to better understand feeding rates of eagles on carrion, which is a likely source of lead fragments that eagles ingest, eventually poisoning them.  We are working cooperatively with Dr. Matt Orr, a researcher at Oregon State University conducting similar research that emphasizes the importance of ravens in finding carrion and attracting other scavengers. Even when ravens arrive at a carca

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications The summer air is almost still, delicately scented with a sweet, seasonal bloom. Brilliantly winged creatures flit and float between lupine, spirea and honeysuckle. Here in the Molbak’s Butterfly Garden , speak softly and step carefully as you enter another world. Opening Sat., July 2, the new exhibit takes flight with 500 free-flying butterflies from at least 15 native North American species. You’ll get a full sensory introduction to the fragility and resilience of nature as flowers bloom and butterflies emerge around you. Photo: Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. Photo: Brittney Bush Bollay/Woodland Park Zoo. The presence of a single butterfly is enchanting—tiny, delicate and fairylike. Their littleness can be measured in grams, their adult lifespan sometimes just months, weeks or days. Yet butterflies are also grand in scale. In the Lepidoptera taxonomic order, there are at least 15,000 butterfly species and 250,000 moth species.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Editor Video: TT for the Bears. Things got very Seattle at Woodland Park Zoo when the world-famous fishmongers from Pike Place Fish Market helped us kick off Bear Awareness week and the big event, Bear Affair: Living Northwest Conservation Day presented Brown Bear Car Wash coming up Sat., Jun. 4. Photo: John Loughlin/Woodland Park Zoo. Grizzly brothers Keema and Denali could smell the salmon long before the fishmongers sent the fish flying over to them, shouting "TT for the bears" as in "test toss" in fishmonger-speak. Photo: John Loughlin/Woodland Park Zoo. In true Keema and Denali style, the bears let gravity do the work for them and then dined contentedly. Photo: John Loughlin/Woodland Park Zoo. Don't let the beautiful exhibit design fool you—the fishmongers were a safe distance from the bears with layers of containment between them, all under the watchful eyes of our animal care crew. That'