Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications We’re counting down the zoo stories that made us smile, made us care, and made us take action this year. From fuzzy new faces at the zoo, to scaly new additions to the wild, all of these stories have been made possible because of your support. Thanks for an amazing 2012, and here’s to going wild in 2013! 12. Snowpocalypse Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Remember Snowpocalypse 2012 ? The year got off to a snowy start, and—despite having to close the zoo for safety—we caught a number of zoo animals having fun romping around in the snow. 11. Turtles take a wild journey Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. When we released 90 native western pond turtles to a South Puget Sound protected habitat, it was the story of turtle "2"  that brought home the big hope riding on these tiny turtles. Hope for an endangered species, hope for a recovering habitat, and hope for people finding a way to live sustainab

Wishing you a warm and wonderful holiday season, from your friends at Woodland Park Zoo!   Video:  Happy Holidays from Woodland Park Zoo Seattle 2012 from WoodlandPark Zoo on Vimeo . Want to share the zoo love? Send a zoo-themed holiday eCard to your friends and family this winter and save on paper. Video produced by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications WildLights presented by KeyBank —the zoo's first winter lights festival—premieres next week, but we've been daydreaming about sugarplums and snowflakes for months in preparation for the big debut. You can say we’ve been hit with the WildLights bug—Twinkleitus—ever since we saw the preliminary sketches of our zoo lit up with 375,000 sparkling LED lights! A sneak peek at some of the sparkle. It takes a lot of hard work to build such an elaborate lights display, so John Evans, the zoo's guy in charge of this entire operation, assembled a group of LED artisans who blew our socks off with their ingenuity and resourcefulness. A lot of these folks have backgrounds in theater design, carpentry and sculpture, but one of them is even a stuntman from Hollywood. The pop up workshop was full of grinding, drilling, sawing, and lots of ear plugs. The crew worked all summer building flapping flamingos, flying frogs and even a gracef

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: Rob Goehrke, Education A wolf receives an enrichment treat put together by Zoo Crew kids. Photo by Ryan Hawk/WPZ “Spectacular!” “Outstanding!” “Awesome!” These are the words I heard after my class of 7th graders enjoyed a culminating experience at Woodland Park Zoo through our Zoo Crew program. Zoo Crew is designed to engage middle school youth from traditionally underserved communities in science and conservation enrichment activities. I had the chance to work with this particular group of kids during their 4-week summer camp through the YMCA, serving as one of their science teachers and guiding them through a program that was both enriching to them and the zoo’s animals. Here’s the recipe: Brown bear at Woodland Park Zoo. Photo by Ryan Hawk/WPZ Step 1:   Each student choose one of four animals: gray wolf , brown bear ,  l owland anoa  or  k ea Step 2:   As a group, research their animal’s habitat, diet, adaptations, conservation status and more