Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications River otters sometimes swim in circles, creating a whirlpool.  The maneuver pays off--the whirlpool brings up fish that were hiding on the bottom of the river or lake, making for easier snacking.   Photo by Mat Hayward/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications A snow leopard’s spots are a thing of beauty, and in this case, that beauty is skin-deep. That's because the pigmented spots go beyond the furry surface and are actually part of the snow leopard's skin itself. You can see it here in this shaved patch on one of our snow leopard cubs . The cubs each had a tiny patch shaved during their first health exam to help zookeepers tell them apart on the internal web cam we use to monitor mom and cubs. Notice how the rosette on the shaved patch continues from fur to skin. Snow leopard spots aren’t just for looking pretty. They provide critical camouflage for these hunters, allowing them to blend into their rocky environment as they stalk prey. However, that camouflage and slinky elusiveness also make them difficult to study in the wild! That’s why our conservation partners at the Snow Leopard Trust use hidden cameras that are motion-activated to snap photos of

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications We have three little secrets to share: Triplet snow leopards were born on May 2! The precious cubs, born to 7-year-old mother Helen and 6-year-old father Tom, have been tucked away under mom’s close care in a behind-the-scenes den. Today marked the first day our keepers and vets were able to access the cubs for a quick health exam—which means it was also the very first opportunity we had to take photos. At 2-weeks-old, the cubs are a healthy weight, ranging between 2.1 and 2.4 pounds.   We were able to determine that we’ve got two females and one male on our hands. Snow leopard cubs are born with their eyes closed, and our little trio is just starting to open their eyes. After the brief exam, the cubs were quickly returned to mom who is taking excellent care of them. This is her second litter of cubs, and that maternal experience is paying off. She’s nurturing the three cubs very wel

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Keepers train our tigers and sloth bears behind the scenes to get them to cooperate with their daily care. But in our new exhibits , we’re bringing the behind the scenes front and center with special training areas in the exhibit. You’ll get to watch keepers interact with the animals up close as they train right in front of you! Training is an essential part of providing excellent care for these intelligent, powerful animals. It's a lot easier to give medicine to or examine a body part of a massive tiger when it is cooperating! When you Give Ten for Tigers , you help us bring this and other cool features to the zoo! Thank you.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications We reveal a secret of zoo exhibit design in this latest video.  Help us make our design plans for a new exhibit for tigers and sloth bears a reality through our Give Ten for Tigers campaign . We're 25% to our fundraising goal and we're hoping to raise another $75,000 before May 25 in order to raise enough funds to begin on construction for Phase One of this major new exhibit project. We've been asking you to give, but we're also prepared to give back. Anyone who makes a gift is automatically entered into our Give Ten, Win Ten giveaway for a chance to win a prize pack of 10 zoo admission passes and a tiger ZooParent adoption. You can also enter to win here .  Thanks for your continued support!

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Can you guess which zoo animal these claws belong to?  We'll give you time to think. . . . . . . Did you get it?  . . . . . . Got it? It's the sloth bear! Those sharp, 3-inch-long claws belong to the sloth bear and they are used to dig out insect mounds. After digging, sloth bears  blow away the dirt with their long, mobile lips and with a huge breath, suck up the termites like a high-powered vacuum. You’ll see these adaptations up close when we transform our sloth bears’ and tigers’ 60-year-old exhibits into state-of-the-art, naturalistic homes coming in 2014.  Help us get started on the transformation : Give Ten for Tigers today at http://bit.ly/GiveTen Thanks! (Photos by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo.)

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Can you spot the joey? Our red-necked wallaby baby is spending more time poking out of its mother's pouch, even when mom is hopping all around the exhibit like in the photo above. The infant wallaby, known as a joey in the marsupial world, still spends much of its time curled up in 3-year-old mom Kiley's pouch. As the summer progresses, it'll begin venturing out more and more, returning to mom for feedings. This is the first wallaby joey at Woodland Park Zoo, part of our Species Survival Plan (SSP) efforts in conjunction with the Association of Zoos & Aquariums. Led by experts in husbandry, nutrition, veterinary care, behavior, conservation and genetics, AZA-accredited institutions manage each species as one population in North America to maximize genetic diversity, with the goal of ensuring the long-term survival of the population and the health of individual animals. SSPs also involve a variety of ot

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Stretch with us! Archive image of Hadiah, the last Sumatran tiger cub born at Woodland Park Zoo, seen here in 2006 at 16 days old. We'll have a breeding pair of Malayan tigers in our new exhibit, which means we may have more cubs in the near future! Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. It’s GiveBIG day in King County, which means your $10 gift to our Give Ten for Tigers campaign will get stretched by the partial matching funds from the Seattle Foundation today only when you make your gift at this link .   Even if you can’t make a gift, click the share buttons to spread this to your friends and help us get the word out across the community. Together, we’ll create an awesome new exhibit for tigers and sloth bears at the zoo.  Remember, GiveBIG is today only. Any gift you make through GiveBIG will go directly to our Give Ten for Tigers campaign. Tomorrow we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming of Give

Are you tired of our worn-out, 60-year-old tiger and sloth bear exhibits? So are we! That's why we're embarking on the biggest extreme makeover here at the zoo since the 1990s to build a new, state-of-the-art, 2-acre exhibit complex for Malayan tigers , sloth bears , small-clawed otters , tropical birds and so much more! Future plans for Woodland Park Zoo's all new, naturalistic tiger exhibit complex. If you love animals, you'll love the new experience we're designing. You should see the plans ! The exhibit complex will also play a crucial role in inspiring people to help save wild tigers  whose future is in serious jeopardy. Malayan tiger. Photo by Melinda Arnold/Dickerson Park Zoo. But we can't build it without you. Literally. If you've ever done any remodeling you know it's expensive. And we only have until May 25 to raise enough money to start construction on Phase One of the exhibit complex (which will include an exhibit

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Early in the morning, the tropical rain forest usually resonates with "singing" siamangs whose call is so loud it can be heard for up to 3 miles.  How can they project so far? That hairless throat pouch blows up to act as a resonator that enhances the carrying of their call. Photo by Dennis Conner/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications We’re just a little over a week away from officially debuting two species of wild pig at the zoo on May 5 and 6 — Visayan warty pigs and African warthogs . Warthogs have moved into the zoo's African Savanna biome.  When new animals arrive at the zoo, they go through a standard 30-day quarantine. Our newly arrived 1-year-old brother and sister warthogs—who came to us from Zoo Atlanta—are wrapping up their quarantine now and have just been introduced to their exhibit space so they can begin to acclimate to their new surroundings. But a big step for them before they could enter their exhibit space in the African Savanna was to head off to the vets for a health check-up in order to be cleared from quarantine. Female warthog gets her check-up by our Animal Health team. The warthogs recently completed their quarantine exams and got clean bills of health. The two were weighed, had x-rays taken and blood drawn,

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications While many visitors think this animal is a goose that has taken up residence in the flamingo exhibit, this is in fact the Coscoroba swan , native to South America and known to fly with flamingos during migration in the wild. Photo by flickr user Sean Enright

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications A fuzzy Humboldt penguin chick stretches out during a check-up with keepers. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. What is more adorable than a penguin chick check-up? It’s tough to think of anything more wonderful to celebrate springtime than a couple of fuzzy, gray additions to our Humboldt penguin colony, especially the story behind one of these very lucky chicks! Up close with a penguin chick. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Two little penguin chicks received their first weigh-in and visual health assessment yesterday behind the scenes at our award-winning Humboldt penguin exhibit. Keepers John and Celine carefully weighed and checked each penguin chick, the first two of this year’s penguin breeding season. These desert penguin chicks weighed in yesterday at 9 oz. and 11 oz. Penguin chick on the scale! Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. Here you can see a penguin egg being candled. Keepers