Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Shawn Pedersen, Animal Collection Manager Penguin fans—we’ve got some exciting news for you! Over the last few weeks, three pairs of Humboldt penguins have been busy incubating two eggs each in the burrows we’ve constructed for them in their new exhibit . This is great progress for our birds and shows us they are comfortable in the exhibit we’ve built for them . These are the first eggs at Woodland Park Zoo to come from this flock of penguins that debuted last May, and we’ve been tracking the development of the eggs around every two weeks with a process called candling. With candling, you use a high powered and focused light for just a few quick seconds to see if the egg is fertile, alive and developing as it should be. You can see some photos of the process below: Depending on how far along in the incubation process the egg is, you should be able to see veins after about a week’s time, and should be able to see movement in the egg about half way through the incubation

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications A rescued and rehabilitated golden eagle named Ranger will be the newest addition to the zoo’s Raptor Center, and today, he received a full physical examination by our Animal Health staff as part of the standard quarantine process for new animals. Ranger is estimated to be between three and five years old, and has been through a lot in his time. He came under the care of Yakima’s Raptor House Rehabilitation Center in 2008 when he was discovered with wing and leg injuries after sustaining electrical shock and later being struck by a vehicle. He also tested positive for lead poisoning. Eagles can unintentionally ingest lead fragments when feeding on animals that were shot. Poisoning also can occur through bioaccumulation when many animals killed by lead bullets are eaten. Due to his injuries, he cannot be released back into the wild, but we’re excited to welcome him to Woodland Park Zoo and to provide him with a safe, long-term home and excell

Posted by: Sue Andersen, Zookeeper Early last month, Woodland Park Zoo Collection Manager Erin Sullivan and I took a road trip for conservation to release captive-reared caterpillars as part of a new zoo program to recover the wild populations of the state endangered Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly. The release into the wild may be the exciting and deeply rewarding climax to this pilot program, but the story begins with the arrival to the zoo of 510 very sleepy, fuzzy black caterpillars that were just waking up from almost six months of diapause (winter resting). The caterpillars were hatched and reared at Oregon Zoo last summer before entering the natural resting period late last summer. At Woodland Park Zoo, the larvae were set up in plastic bins where they were fed, watered, and carefully monitored for about 10 days. During their stay, the caterpillars ate like, well, very hungry caterpillars! Along with my fellow keeper Diane Abbey, we harvested nearly 100 plantago leaves per

Posted by: Dr. Marc Ancrenaz, Hutan Asian Elephant Conservation ( Woodland Park Zoo Partner for Wildlife ) It’s no secret that much of the forest land in Sabah is being decimated in order to plant palm oil plantations —putting the Asian elephant and orangutan populations in decline due to loss of habitat. (Pictured below: a young elephant roaming in a palm oil plantation in Kinabatangan, Borneo). In 2008, Hutan began exploring the idea of developing community tree nurseries as an alternative source of income for village families. In May 2009, Hutan gave Hamidin Braim, a villager with experience in tree nurseries, a micro-loan to build a seedling collection center at his home and purchase seedlings from villagers. Hutan and Hamidin gave appropriate training to village families to collect wild seedlings of selected native tree species and raise them in plastic polybags at their homes.  Fifteen tree species were chosen, all consumed by orangutans, and known to have relatively high su

Posted by Ric Brewer, Communications Our very own Dr. Lisa Dabek, director of the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program, was recently featured in the New York Times for her use of portable solar power technology in the field. Since much of her work takes her into the remote cloud forests of Papua New Guinea, you can imagine that finding an electrical outlet would be a bit of a challenge! She began using solar power to help charge field equipment and is championing this resource as technology improves (you can even charge your cell phone by the sun now!). Read more about Lisa's solar efforts in the New York Times . And discover more about how you can help the  Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program . Dr. Lisa Dabek (right) and Toby Ross lay out a solar array to collect power to recharge their equipment in the field. Photo courtesy TKCP

Posted by: Ric Brewer, Communications Five-year-old best friends Hannah Madsen and Sophia Rascoff aren’t just all about fingerpainting and playing dress up. These two enterprising kids are helping to make a better future for the endangered western pond turtle by raising money for their care at Woodland Park Zoo. During a visit to the zoo, Hannah watched the video near our Template Wetlands exhibit that features the story of our conservation efforts for this native turtle. Hannah’s mom, Susan, said her daughter was so taken with these shelled creatures that she wanted to help. So she enlisted classmate and buddy Sophia and put together a bake sale to help raise money for the zoo’s Western Pond Turtle Recovery Project . The girls made a colorful sign to display at the sale and offered a variety of homebaked and donated pastries and cookies. Susan said some people even gave a $20 bill for a single cupcake! Susan contacted the zoo to see if the girls, along with some of their classmates

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications If you have seen celebrity naturalist David Mizejewski from National Wildlife Federation on any of his regular radio or television appearances—including the Today Show, Martha Stewart, HGTV and Animal Planet—you know he is committed to making the world a better place for wildlife. And now he is coming to the zoo to show you how you can do the same while having fun with your family. David will be joined by several animals that live at the zoo for a special free event at Zoomazium on February 5 from 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. He’ll share great ideas on creating wildlife-friendly gardens in your own backyard and community, and fun ways of getting kids outdoors and connecting with nature. Hope to see you there!

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications For Woodland Park Zoo, 2009 was a year of notable births, conservation milestones, and a few firsts. Here’s my personal pick of the top 9 zoo stories from 2009, in no particular order--some fun, some inspirational, and some just cute. What were your favorite zoo stories this year? 1. Creating Papua New Guinea’s first Conservation Area 2. Penguins take their first swim 3. Snow leopard twins born to first-time mom 4. How do you exercise flamingo chicks? 5. Zoo hatches a cottonball…err, tawny frogmouth chick 6. Endangered Oregon spotted frogs released into the wild 7. Zoo staff and community team up to restore local habitat 8. Introducing the world’s first GPS-enabled zoo iPhone app 9. Animals get their own downtown art show, critics go wild

Posted by: Hilary Aten, Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program Last night, TV viewers across the U.S. discovered an animal few had ever seen before, but are now not likely to forget. Woodland Park Zoo's work to study and protect the endangered Matschie's tree kangaroo was featured on both ABC World News and ABC Nightline --showing rare glimpses of the animal's elusive, tree-top lifestyle in the remote, dense forests of Papua New Guinea. Click to watch the full story online (will open in a new window): From November 5-7, 2009, ABC News anchor Dan Harris joined researchers from Woodland Park Zoo-based Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program (TKCP) and National Geographic at the program's Wasaunon field research site in the Papua New Guinea cloud forest of the Huon Peninsula. Through a generous grant from National Geographic and the Waitt Foundation's exploratory research program, Kyler Abernathy and TKCP's Dr. Lisa Dabek successfully captured and outfitted two wild

Posted by: Ryan Hawk, Photographer A few weeks ago, on a rainy, rainy day, zookeeper Kimberly Cooper and I hopped in the zoo’s Prius and traveled to the off-road back areas of Fort Lewis to release the last few of this year’s batch of about 450 Oregon spotted frogs . In the first year of the recovery program at Woodland Park Zoo, the endangered frogs were raised on zoo grounds to be given a head start in the wild. It’s one of several species recovery programs the zoo participates in locally. Zookeepers like Kimberly raise the frogs from egg to adult in order to increase their odds of survival in the wild. The work takes place behind the scenes in a quiet corner of the zoo’s 92 acres . Watch the release in this short video. Woodland Park Zoo participates in the recovery program in collaboration with partners including Northwest Trek , Oregon Zoo , Cedar Creek Correctional Facility, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife . And each of these groups were represented as we re

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Last Thursday, Woodland Park Zoo was recognized by the Seattle Design Commission with a design excellence award for our new Humboldt penguin exhibit! The award is in recognition of Seattle’s best capital improvement projects. Other honorees were Fremont Peak Park, Thornton Creek, Seattle Center Century 21 Master Plan, and Sound Transit Central Link. Visitors may be fixated on the nose-to-beak views of the penguins in the exhibit, but it’s the harder to see sustainable elements of the exhibit that captured the Design Commission’s attention. With support from Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities , we installed an energy efficient ground-based geothermal heat pump that uses the Earth’s below-ground temperature to keep the exhibit’s water at a penguin-friendly 55 degrees year round, as well as an innovative water filtration system. These features will save nearly 22,000 kilowatt-hours of energy and 3 million gallons of water per year.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Check out this latest conservation interview featuring Dr. Sergei Smirinski, a Woodland Park Zoo Partner for Wildlife , on endangered cranes and other plants and animals of Muraviovka Park in Russia. The Cranes of Asia conservation project works to protect the red crowned crane, hooded crane and oriental white stork, all of which rely on protection of the habitat in Russia's Muraviovka Park. Some of the critical threats facing the cranes and their habitat include long-term drought, fires that eliminate the dead grass necessary for nest camouflage, predators and competitors due to the growing impact of the drought and fires, disturbance by spring hunting on waterfowl, collisions with power lines, and use of pesticides and herbicides. For more information on Dr. Smirinski's work to conserve the cranes of Asia, check out our newly updated Partners for Wildlife website. Video by Ryan Hawk, photo by Dennis Dow.

Posted by: Kate Neville, Development Here’s your chance to help us save endangered turtles—all you have to do is cast a vote! Woodland Park Zoo has been selected as one of three local conservation organizations to participate in the 2009 Patagonia Voice Your Choice Program . From September 24 through October 24, customers at the downtown Seattle store will learn more about each of the three selected organizations. Customers can then vote for their favorite organization. Grants will be awarded based on the voting—First place: $2,500, Second place: $1,500, and Third place: $1,000. Proceeds from this program will go to Woodland Park Zoo's Western Pond Turtle Recovery Project , a collaborative, grass-roots effort to restore Western pond turtle populations in Washington state. Funds will help cover the costs of Woodland Park Zoo's headstarting program, in which baby turtles are reared in captivity, then released into the wild when they are large enough to be safe from predators.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Woodland Park Zoo's conservationists and staff photographer traveled to Papua New Guinea in April this year to help celebrate the passage of PNG’s first national Conservation Area —a conservation milestone 12 years in the making with Woodland Park Zoo’s Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program , partners , and PNG villagers and government. This video transports you to the Sing Sing celebration in the highland village of Teptep, Papua New Guinea, complete with songs and dances honoring this national achievement and the international unity behind it. Hear from the many Papua New Guinea nationals who have contributed their own land, time and dedication to this project. In the words of one PNG landowner you’ll see in the video, “I saw that people were destroying the land. But I said, save the land. Save it and look after it. Easy does it—step by step.” This is one huge step we are proud to be part of. Go here to learn more about the 187,000 acre Y

Posted by: Kim M. Murray, Ph.D., Assistant Director of Science, Snow Leopard Trust Read on for an update on tracking wild snow leopards from the Snow Leopard Trust’s field research base in Mongolia. The Snow Leopard Trust is one of Woodland Park Zoo’s Partners for Wildlife *. Summer is the busiest season at the Snow Leopard Trust’s research camp in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. This summer our crew spent long days in the field looking for sites with recent snow leopard activity to deploy our trap cameras. By early July we had 41 cameras distributed over a 500-square-mile area, making it the most ambitious camera trapping study ever undertaken for snow leopards. The cameras remained in the field for a month; now we’re reviewing the images to see how many cats we photographed. Because every snow leopard has a unique spot pattern, just like a human fingerprint, we can use these photos to identify individual cats to estimate the size of the snow leopard population. We’re also using GPS sat

Posted by: Gigi Allianic, Communications After nearly a year of nourishment and care by Woodland Park Zoo turtle experts, 53 endangered western pond turtles swam their way back into the wild when we joined Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to release the turtles last week at wildlife refuge sites in Pierce and Mason Counties. On hand to help release the shelled reptiles was 7-year-old Harrison Keyser of Sammamish, Wash. (pictured at left with his sisters) who arranged a “Turtle Trot” to raise more than $300 for the Western Pond Turtle Recovery Project. Harrison told us he thought “it was really cool letting the turtles go in the pond” and he’d like to do this again next year. We’d be happy to have you back, Harrison! The 10-month-old turtles were collected last fall from the wild as hatchlings and head started at the zoo to give them an edge on surviving in the wild. Collection Manager Mike Teller and his keepers have a system for growing the turtles to just the right size: “W

Posted by Ric Brewer, Communications Below: WPZ staff member David Droppers with Zoo Corps interns Claire and Brenna, transport endangered Oregon silverspot butterflies for release (top) and releasing them at Cascade Head Reserve. (Photos by Katie Remine ) On Thursday, August 13, Brenna and Claire, two of our Zoo Corps teen interns got the great opportunity to have a direct impact on wildlife conservation by participating in the release of endangered Oregon silverspot butterflies at a protected site in Cascade Head Reserve, Oregon. The site, run by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department and The Nature Conservancy is not only protecting some of the last vestiges of this rare native butterfly, it also is the site of what is becoming an ever dwindling habitat, coastal grasslands. The zoo has been participating in the Oregon Silverspot Butterfly Recovery Project by raising butterfly at the zoo and releasing pupae back to this location which also hosts the butterflies' favorite fo

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Don't miss the debut of the snow leopard cubs tomorrow, Saturday, August 15, at noon during our 3rd annual Snow Leopard Day . The male cub will get his name--chosen by your votes--and the public will see the cubs take their first official steps into the exhibit! Enjoy a full day of activities (9:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.) celebrating one of the world’s most endangered and elusive wild animals. The third annual event is hosted by the zoo and its conservation partner, the Snow Leopard Trust , to highlight the fascinating adaptations of the snow leopard and critical conservation efforts to protect them in the wild. Activities include: * Keeper talks and special enrichment for the snow leopards * Conservation talks by Snow Leopard Trust * Book launch and signing of "Saving the Ghost of the Mountain: An Expedition Among Snow Leopards in Mongolia" with author Sy Montgomery * Snow leopard-inspired crafts for kids * Special themed programs for

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Here's your chance to own one of the Penguins on the March penguin statues seen migrating across Seattle this summer--a public silent auction will be held for the penguins on August 14 at the monthly Art Up Greenwood-Phinney art walk . Meet some of the artists and place your bid on one of the 30 penguin statues that will be auctioned off to benefit Woodland Park Zoo’s field conservation programs . Woodland Park Zoo currently supports 38 wildlife conservation projects in 50 countries worldwide, including the Humboldt Penguin Conservation Center at Punta San Juan. Save the date: Friday, August 14, 2009, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. at The Greenwood Collective . See you there! Photos by Ryan Hawk.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications For the first time in three years, Woodland Park Zoo is once again home to the Matschie’s tree kangaroo ! This endangered species is endemic to Papua New Guinea and is known for its bear-like head, bushy tail and marsupial’s pouch. Huen, an eight-year-old male, is a little shy when it comes to the camera, but we snapped this photo of him while he was perched up in a tree. Huen arrived from Singapore Zoo in March and can now be found living in the Day Exhibit. As one of the newest conservation ambassadors at the zoo, Huen represents the inspiring work of the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program , founded and based here at Woodland Park Zoo. You might remember the big news we shared earlier this year when Woodland Park Zoo’s Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program celebrated a milestone with the passage of Papua New Guinea’s first ever national Conservation Area , preserving 187,800 acres of forest habitat for the endangered Matschie’s tree kangaroo an