Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Meerkat pileup! Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. Meerkats are the most social of all the mongooses and spend much of their time playing and grooming to maintain their tight bonds.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications This is a conservation story about butterflies and beer. An Oregon silverspot butterfly lands on a beer bottle. It’ll all make sense by the end of the story, I promise.  Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Where to start? How about we take it back to biology class. Remember learning about generalists and specialists? Humans are the ultimate generalist—we’ll live in just about any habitat and eat just about any food. Then there are the specialists, like koalas and their eucalyptus-only diet. For specialists, survival depends on that one thing they specialize in. That one thing goes away, and they’re in big trouble. Oregon silverspot butterfly at Cascade Head in Oregon. Photo by Rachel Gray/Woodland Park Zoo. That’s what’s happening to the Oregon silverspot butterfly, a native of the Pacific Northwest and a specialist dependent on the early blue violet plant for survival. This threatened species once li

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Our Chilean flamingos may be pretty in pink, but three recently hatched chicks are wonderful in white as their downy feathers haven’t yet taken on that classic blushed shade. Flamingo chicks hatch with a whitish, gray down and start to acquire their pink feathering at about 1 year of age, though it can still be mixed with gray-brown contour feathers until they are 2 to 3 years old. The chicks hatched on exhibit between August 31 and September 5 following a 29-day incubation period. To ensure a higher chance of survival, the chicks and parents have been relocated behind the scenes to a quieter off-exhibit nursery for rearing. As they get bigger and hardier, we will reintroduce them back out on exhibit and back into the flock. Photos by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Monica Lake, Capital Projects Our sloth bears Randy and Tasha were out in full regalia Tuesday, sniffing, scratching, balancing on logs and slurping their favorite foods—all to greet 200+ zoo lovers and advocates who gathered to help us celebrate a major milestone:  breaking ground on the new Asian Tropical Forest exhibit complex! Assisted by sloth bear Randy, President and CEO Deborah Jensen spoke about design and animal care innovations at the Asian Tropical Forest groundbreaking ceremony Sept. 18, 2012. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Nearly 100 additional zoo fans of the smaller variety “dug in” to make way for new homes for Asian small-clawed otters, sloth bears and Malayan tigers. Kids from Orca Children’s Center, North Seattle Fives Cooperative and West Woodland Elementary School joined the ceremony. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. The kids also did a great job of overseeing the work of several leaders of the Asian Tropical Fo

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Emu feathers are designed to hang loosely, which helps keep them cool but also gives them an appearance of having hair rather than the tightly barbed feathers we’re used to seeing on most birds . Photo by Mat Hayward/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications A porcupine’s front teeth continue to grow throughout its life. Porcupine nibbling. Photo by Lauren LaPlante/Woodland Park Zoo That’s helpful since it spends its days constantly gnawing on hard substances, wearing down its teeth. Mmmm, tree bark.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Giraffes have the largest eyes of any land mammal.  Photo by Brittney Bollay/Woodland Park Zoo.   Other animals on the savanna use giraffes as watchtowers — with their height and keen vision, giraffes are often the first to spot predators.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Why is a blue-tongued skink’s tongue blue?  Blue-tongued skink. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Because we feed it blue ice pops. Nah, just kidding. That blue tongue is a natural adaptation. A blue tongue darting out dramatically from a skink’s mouth can warn off or startle away predators.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Before they make their official debut to the public this Sat., August 25, we gave our snow leopard cubs the chance to take their very first steps out onto exhibit this week to get comfortable with their new surroundings. Shanti (left) with mother Helen and sister Asha (far right). Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. On the first day that we gave 16-week-old cubs Asha and Shanti access to the exhibit this week, they never stepped foot outside of their holding area! This was likely due to a combination of their own shyness and their mother Helen’s cautiousness. On day two, they didn’t do too much better. Keepers eventually got them to go out into the exhibit but it lasted for just a few short minutes and they ran back inside to their mother not to be seen again that day. Helen grooms her cub Asha. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Finally, on day three of these soft introductions, we had success! Helen led t

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications A penguin’s tuxedo feathering is not for fancy occasions—it’s actually a type of camouflage known as countershading.   Humboldt penguin at Woodland Park Zoo. Photo by Ryan Hawk/WPZ. When a penguin is in the water, its black back blends into the darker water below when viewing it from above, and its white belly blends into the lighter surface of the water when looking up from underneath it. 

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications The results of our Visayan warty pig naming contest are in! With more than 900 votes cast, the top names for the three female pigs, in order of greatest number of votes received are: GUAPA (beautiful), BULAK (flower) and MAGDULA (playful). The names reflect the pigs' Philippine origin. One lucky winner—Toni Thomas of Seattle—was selected at random from all eligible contest entrants to win the grand prize $500 Visa gift card courtesy of U.S. Bank and a Woodland Park Zoo Visayan warty pig ZooParent adoption . Runners-up—Bethel B. VonRoeder and Brian Patneaude—will receive each a $100 Visa gift card courtesy of U.S. Bank and a Woodland Park Zoo Visayan warty pig ZooParent adoption. Thanks for casting your vote this summer and thanks to our contest sponsors U.S. Bank and The Seattle Times for making this contest possible. Photo (modified) by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications With Olympics in full swing, we’re awarding some medals to our own animal all-stars, some of the best athletes at Woodland Park Zoo. Competition: Swimming Penguin porpoising with purpose. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. Gold medal: Humboldt penguin Humboldt penguins may seem awkward on land, but in the water they truly fly, getting up to speeds of 17 mph and bursting into glorious dives known as porpoising, where they leap out of the water to catch a breath and dive back in again without losing speed. Doing the backstroke. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Silver medal: River otter Otters have a killer backstroke, though their form might differ from our own. Plus, their propensity to create whirlwinds that kick up bottom-feeding fish may throw off the competition. Hippo submerging. Photo by Mat Hayward/Woodland Park Zoo. Bronze medal: Hippo Hippos get up to about 5 mph underwater, but