Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Peter Miller, Zookeeper with Katrina Lindahl, Horticulturist Woodland Park Zoo provides a home for the critically endangered—animals and plants alike. After local authorities confiscated a number of endangered succulent plants, seized from a collector who illegally dug them up from their native habitats, we are proud to step in and provide the plants with a second chance to thrive. Here, keepers and horticulturists work closely together all the time to choose plants for exhibits and zoo grounds. We look at factors like overlapping native ranges of plants and animals, connections in their natural history, and potential toxicity of plants to animals when making choices.  Using these parameters, we have found appropriate new homes for the plants, all of which are listed as protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). These wonderful specimens have been incorporated into geographically-appropriate animal exhibits within the zoo’s...

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications Last year, Day Exhibit keeper Alyssa Borek took this footage  of a black breasted leaf turtle tasting a hibiscus flower. It was pretty adorable. More recently, keeper Peter Miller captured this video of a very acrobatic black-breasted leaf turtle dining on an elusive meal worm. Go get ‘em! In the wild, black-breasted leaf turtles eat various invertebrates, such as insects, worms, and grubs. They also eat decaying fruit found on the forest floor and venture into streams to collect insect larvae. At the zoo, the turtles dine primarily on insects with occasional fruits, vegetables and sometimes flowers. The black-breasted leaf turtle is one of the smallest in the world, at about five inches long. They have a unique and beautiful shell with rough edges which resemble a leaf. Black-breasted leaf turtle are in danger, and you can help! They are listed as endangered due to habitat destruction and over collection. They are also used in ...

Posted by: Peter S. Miller, Zookeeper “Is it safe to come out yet? Not yet, maybe tomorrow.” These are the thoughts that might arise in the brain of a Louisiana pine snake hatchling. It is a chance decision that could mean your life or death in the wild. Such is the beginning of life for an endangered Louisiana pine snake. Next thoughts: hide or eat. When your serpentine undulations would signal a nearby predator that a tasty meal has just emerged from a clutch of eggs under the soil, stealth is critical…but so is breakfast! As the old adage goes, “eat or be eaten.” The Louisiana pine snake, Pituophis ruthveni , is a species under threat from habitat alteration of its native longleaf pine forest in the southeastern United States. This species has just increased its numbers on planet Earth by two, thanks to hatchlings that emerged late this summer at Woodland Park Zoo’s Day Exhibit. This accomplishment might not sound like much, but when your species is rare in the wild and ...

Posted by: Peter Miller, Keeper In the last few weeks on the blog, we’ve introduced you to baby bugs , birds , and mammals . So now it’s time for baby reptiles… Meet a newly hatched, endangered black-breasted leaf turtle. When this turtle was born on June 5, it weighed in at 5 grams—about the weight of a quarter—and its shell is about the size of a quarter too! A lot of care goes into preparing for a hatching like this. It took about 2 months to gestate in our incubator which was set at about 78-80 degrees Fahrenheit. One of the most striking and conspicuous features of this unusual turtle is its large and protuberant eyes that give an alert expression. Their diet includes snails, slugs, earthworms and other forest floor invertebrates, although some captive individuals apparently also feed on fruit and vegetables. Like most Asian turtle species, the black-breasted leaf turtle is in grave danger of extinction due to over-collection from the wild for the food, medicine and pet trade. Tu...