Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Uzumma, who turned one year old this October, has been boldly venturing away from her mother and exploring the new trees recently installed in the gorilla exhibit. Many of us have spotted her playing around the base of the trees before, but this weekend, one of our photographers caught Uzumma testing her climbing skills on the 30 ft tall trees. Word is she made it about half way up several times! Have you seen her go higher? Let us know! Photos by Dennis Dow.

Today TV camera crews and some lucky guests got a sneak peek at what this weekend's annual Pumpkin Bash has in store for visitors. The zoo's three hippos were treated to some pumpkin bobbing. The hippos hilariously lined up with their mouths gaped wide open, waiting patiently for the keepers to toss the pumpkins right in! But our keepers wanted the hippos to work for their snack, so the huge pumpkins were tossed into the pool and the hippos swam after them, chasing them around like they were bobbing for apples! Watch them in action--and turn up the sound for full, spooky Halloween effect! You can catch the hippos plus many, many more animals smashing, stomping, and chomping on pumpkins at Pumpkin Bash this Sat. and Sun., Oct. 25 & 26, 10:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. Photos by Tianna Klineburger. Video by Ryan Hawk.

We are celebrating the birth of twin galagos, an African primate also known as a “bushbaby.” The galagos were born October 11. Pictured here, the galagos received their first vet check-up on Fri., Oct. 17. All is well! The large eyes on this small creature are an adaptation to their nocturnal lifestyle in their native African habitats. The galagos are on view in the Night House exhibit, but the babies are staying close to their mother near their nest box, so it may be difficult to spot them in the dark! In the meantime, get your fix of images from behind the scenes at that first vet exam here: Photos by Ryan Hawk.

Here's video of six-year-old western lowland gorilla Calaya mastering the new upright trees and vines recently installed in the gorilla exhibit. This footage was taken at the very first moment Calaya encountered the new structures, and as you can see, she wasted no time in checking them out! The new artificial trees and vines installed in the exhibit will stand up to the rough and tumble of playful (and heavy!) gorillas for years to come. Come check them out!

The ocelot kittens got their first neonatal exam and were given a clean bill of health by their vets! Looks like both kittens are female. And it's official--they are as cute as can be. Case in point: You can even watch the behind-the-scenes footage of their first exam: Newborn ocelots are blind at birth and are helpless for several weeks, relying solely on their mother for care and nutrition. Staff continue to have minimal physical contact and monitor the mother and kittens in the birthing den via a web cam only. We hope to have them out on exhibit in 6-8 weeks. Until then, stay tuned for more video and photos! Photos by Ryan Hawk.

Calaya took to the trees last week as our gorillas were treated to their newly "decorated" exhibit. Two custom-made metal and concrete trees were the main reason for the exhibit makeover. Created by our talented Exhibits crew, the trees--one weighing more than one ton--were installed both for safety and durability. As you can imagine, a 300-pound gorilla jumping on a rotting tree branch can have consequences, so these realistic trees were made to allay any fears of gorillas raining from the trees! Part of the funding for this project came from 3-year-old Lucas Engles-Klann, who, with the assistance of his mom, held a vegetarian meal fundraiser and brought in $1,200 for our gorillas. We were fortunate to have Lucas here when the gorillas first were let into the newly renovated exhibited. Despite his shyness, Lucas seemed to enjoy the fruits of his generosity almost as much as Calaya enjoyed swinging in her new playground! (Photo by Tianna Klineburger)

For the first time in 15 years, we are celebrating the birth of endangered ocelots ! Two kittens were born last week. They are the first offspring of mother Bella, 7 years old, and father Brazil, 12 years old. The gender of the kittens is unknown at this time. To minimize disturbance, staff have minimal physical contact with the new family and are monitoring the mother and kittens in the birthing den via an internal web cam only (from which these screenshots were taken). Things are going well with this first-time mother. She is providing round-the-clock care and demonstrating excellent maternal skills. The kittens are active and nursing regularly. It’s critical at this time to give the mother and kittens their time and space to bond and develop healthily, so the kittens will not be on public view for at least six to eight weeks. We hope to be able to update soon with photos and/or video. You can still catch the father, Brazil, on view in the award-winning Tropical Rain Forest exhibit.

Posted by: Jona Jacobson, Woodland Park Zoo Conservation Department Did you know in the 1970s, only 75 Rodrigues fruit bats were left on the island of Rodrigues, a district of Mauritius? But thanks to concerted conservation efforts, those numbers are now approximately 5,500. This number can drop, however, by as much as 50% during a major cyclone, which occurs every 5 to 6 years. The Rodrigues Environmental Educator Project (REEP) was formed in 1998, and for the first two years the emphasis was on the bats themselves. Starting in 2000, REEP expanded their focus to include environmental issues and school programs. REEP visits 13 schools about every two weeks to conduct lessons with 5th and 6th grade children. The lessons are interactive and hands-on to bolster the teachers' standard curriculum. REEP teaches the scientific, English and Creole names for plants and animals, and takes students out on field trips: 1 to 2 trips per student, per year, during which time the students visit th

UPDATE: Our exhibit crew is putting the finishing touches on the new upright trees recently installed in silverback Vip’s gorilla group . They are adding deadfall and hanging vines and hammocks to make the trees more accessible and usable for the gorillas. Then the horticulture team will bring in soil and finish planting the area. We hope to have the gorillas back out and exploring these exciting new environmental enrichment items within the next few days. If you catch any photos of the gorillas checking out the new trees, please share! You can add them to our flickr slideshow by uploading them to flickr.com and tagging them with the phrase “woodlandparkzoo” or you can email them to us at webkeeper@zoo.org . Photo by Ryan Hawk.

Woodland Park Zoo's presitigious education award from AZA is in good company--AZA also awarded the zoo and its partners "Significant Achievement in International Conservation" for our support of the Tarangire Elephant Project . The Tarangire Elephant Project is one of 35 conservation programs supported by Woodland Park Zoo in over 40 countries. For 15 years, the Tarangire Elephant Project has been studying and protecting the elephants in Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park and the surrounding area—as well as other iconic wildlife there including zebra, wildebeest and buffalo. Having documented a gradual increase in the target elephant population over the years (linked to a decline in the massive ivory poaching of the 1970s and 1980s), other threats now loom including intense competition and conflict with a burgeoning human population. However, in an exemplary, long-term conservation partnership of zoos, governmental and non-governmental actors, and local comm

At the zoo today you may have seen this type of crane: And also this type of crane: This 250-ton crane using a 160-foot boom was on hand today to lift three 30-foot tall trees into the gorilla exhibit for silverback Vip’s group . You might not guess it, but gorillas are adept climbers, often building nests in trees in the wild. And though you’ll find lots of other trees and vegetation already in the gorilla exhibit, these trees are a bit different—they are made of steel pipes with reinforced concrete. Skillfully built, painted and installed by our talented exhibits crew, the new trees will serve as safe climbing structures for the gorillas’ enrichment, and they’ll resist rot and damage for years to come. Check out the trees’ creation and installation: Pete’s group in the adjacent gorilla exhibit will likely be back out this week, but Vip’s group will remain off view while the installation crew puts the finishing touches on the tree installation. We’ll report back on how the gorillas t

Orangutans and other animals enjoyed back-to-school themed treats this weekend to help say goodbye to summer and see the kiddies off to school. Sack lunches, textbooks loaded with surprise treats, and other clever enrichment items were used to not only give our animals a tasty snack, but to also stimulate them with new experiences and to encourage their natural behaviors. Credit goes to our keepers and volunteers who work so hard to create new and engaging enrichment for the animals. The "textbook" covers the orangutan keepers and volunteers decorated (Primate 101, Sign Language, etc.) delighted visitors but were also a hit with the orangutans, who ripped off the paper to use as a shade from the sun.

This "green" Public Service Announcement debuted this week on the Disney Channel featuring Kermit the Frog and Selena Gomez: The Association of Zoos and Aquariums launched 2008 as the Year of the Frog to build awareness for amphibian conservation. Frogs, toads, salamanders and other amphibians are in danger. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) predicts that at least one-third of known amphibian species are in danger of disappearing from the earth for good. What happens to amphibians today may harm other species in the future. But there’s good news: You can help! Create a frog friendly backyard habitat Conserve water at home--it's as easy as shortening your showers Reduce your dependence on fossil fuels Visit the Year of the Frog website or your local zoo for more tips and ideas

Now you can watch the western pond turtle release from earlier this summer on YouTube. Turn up the sound so you can hear from the biologists and zookeepers behind the program, then see a turtle take its first dip in the waters. You can catch all of our newest YouTube videos by subscribing to our channel: http://www.youtube.com/woodlandparkzoo .

Like her elusive wild relatives, Helen—Woodland Park Zoo’s newest snow leopard—made herself hard to spot during her official debut this morning at the snow leopard exhibit. TV and newspaper cameras scrambled to catch a glimpse of the beautiful feline as she crept around trees and hid behind rocks, shyly exploring her new home and the different scents her keepers scattered around the space. Helen, a 3-year-old snow leopard, joins us from Tautphaus Park Zoo in Idaho . Here at WPZ, she’ll make her home with two other snow leopards, 14-year-old Nadia, and 2-year-old Tom. The cat’s name carries on the legacy of devoted snow leopard conservationist Helen Freeman (1932-2007), founder of the Snow Leopard Trust , a WPZ partner for conservation. Together with the Snow Leopard Trust, we’ll be hosting the second annual International Snow Leopard Day event at the zoo this Saturday, August 23, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. At the event, learn all about snow leopard research and conservatio

Posted by: Zoo Corps Have you ever had mango salsa with peanut butter for breakfast? The orangutans have! Every morning, keepers send in ‘grocery lists’ to the Commissary, where all the animals’ food is kept. Then keepers and Zoo Corps interns check the lists and fill plastic tubs from the hay barns, giant refrigerator, and deep freezer. When the bins are filled, a zoo pick-up truck delivers the orders to the hungry animals. Many people have fun stories from their time in the Commissary. Once, a Zoo Corps intern got his wet shoes frozen to the floor of the deep freezer! Another worker spilled coffee on the floor and spent a few days trying to clean up the frozen puddle. While coffee isn’t normally found in the freezer, bags of frozen mice and fish are. The refrigerator holds everything from melons and yams to grape juice and yogurt. In the kitchen, the shelves are stocked with Ensure for older animals, vitamins, graham crackers, bread, popcorn, and the five gallon bucket

Posted by: Zoo Corps ...and it's hungry. Teams of Zoo Corps interns, zoo keepers and volunteers battle hordes of slimy slugs and strangling weeds to find the most perfect, tiny leaves for its greedy mandible. W ho is this ominous-sounding creature, you may ask? It's the Oregon silverspot butterfly, a threatened species that lives only in the meadowlands of Oregon , where its sole source of food—the Western Blue Violet—is found. Since 1999 Woodland Park Zoo has had a behind-the-scenes program involving hatching, raising and releasing into the wild batches of silverspot caterpillars to help boost the wild population. Because caterpillars of all species are known for being voracious eaters, a major part of the program is harvesting leaves from the violets grown by our Horticulture Department and feeding them to the ever-hungry larvae. There’s also a fair bit of slug relocating (Zoo Corps has a competition to see who can take the most slugs from the deliciou

Posted by: Jona Jacobson, Woodland Park Zoo Conservation “Komodo lizards are…big. Very big. There’s one on Komodo at the moment which is over twelve feet long and stands about a yard high, which you can’t help but feel is entirely the wrong size for a lizard to be.” - Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See While big, most Komodo dragons don’t reach quite that size, averaging between 6.5 to 10 feet and weighing in at around 150 pounds. Komodo dragons are the vultures of the four Eastern Indonesian islands they inhabit: they eat carrion . That doesn’t mean, however, they won’t eat other things as well, including hatchling Komodo dragons, whose survival instincts have them scurrying up trees, where they stay until large enough to not be such easy snacks for the adults. WPZ has provided funding to the Komodo Survival Program since 2000. The group’s recent study examines the spatial ecology of juvenile Komodo dragons. Huh, you ask? Field researchers captured 5 hatchling an

We were greeted with sunny skies yesterday morning for this summer's western pond turtle release. Twelve endangered turtles, headstarted for a year at the zoo, were taken to a protected pond site in the Lakewood area for the next step in their life cycle : life in the wild. A full contingent of helpers, including zoo staff and volunteers, 7-year-old Aimee Kessler and project donor Maryanne Tagney Jones, received the honor of gently putting the little turtles, weighing around 2 ounces each, into the waters of their new home. State biologists Michelle Tirhi and Tammy Schmidt checked over the turtles, ensuring that they were correctly marked (small notches are made in their shells for future identification, as well as tiny numbered tags). Michelle notes that the project has had a 95% rate of success in raising turtles since 1996. But we'll let the photos speak for the day. The zoo has proudly worked on this project for nearly two decades, increasing the wild population of these

It’s National Zoo Keeper Week—the perfect time to recognize the incredible work that our dedicated animal management staff does to not only keep the zoo’s animals healthy and happy, but to also teach our visitors about conservation and zoology. The job of the zookeeper is much more than feeding and cleaning up after animals. Today’s keepers engage the animals in their own care, using training and enrichment to give animals the opportunity to act like their wild selves. Keepers must keep close watch over the animals in their care in order to detect any signs of illness, which animals instinctually hide to avoid predation. Keepers also contribute to the overall body of knowledge about animals by participating in behavioral research, and many are active in international conservation efforts. If you think a career as a zookeeper may be right for you, take a look at our zoo careers webpage and our keeper FAQ to learn more about the day-to-day realities of the job and what it takes