Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by Elizabeth Bacher, Communications Male gorilla, Kwame, will become new leader of gorilla family group We are very excited to welcome a new gorilla to Woodland Park Zoo this September: a male named Kwame (KWA-may) who will be coming from Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Kwame is 18 years old—right in the age range when males typically assume the role of silverback, which is the head of a gorilla family group. Keepers at  Smithsonian’s National Zoo think  Kwame is one of the most handsome silverbacks they've ever seen. We are inclined to agree. Photo credit: Skip Brown/Smithsonian’s National Zoo Silverbacks, which are so named because of the silvery hairs that grow in when an adolescent male comes of age, play a critical role in gorilla families. They protect, they lead and they maintain peace in the group. It’s not natural for an established gorilla family to live without a silverback. The Gorilla Species Survival Plan, one of many conservation pro

Posted by Elizabeth Bacher, Communications This whole week—which has been National Zookeeper Week—we’ve been celebrating our amazing animal keepers and showing them some love! Looking out for our animals is more than just a job for WoodlandPark Zoo’s keepers. Lead animal keeper Alyssa strikes a very komodo dragon pose. Most of these dedicated professionals consider their critters to be parts of their extended family—a furry, feathered, scaly and hairy family. We would be happy to accept a rose from either Lucy the raccoon or from Regina, one of our awesome animal keepers. Among Woodland Park Zoo’s animal keeper staff, you will find scientists, researchers, educators, wildlife rehabbers, conservationists and environmental stewards. Christine, Ros, Carolyn, Jenna and Drew make for the most marvelous meerkat mob. They represent the heart and soul of what we do, caring for our animals, providing our guests with amazing experiences and just generally being a

Posted by Elizabeth Bacher, Communications This summer, Woodland Park Zoo is celebrating a very special birthday: Our Historic Carousel, which has been at the zoo since 2006, turns 100 years old! We love that this grand piece of cultural history has been part of so many special moments for our guests, and we hope it will be part of many more to come. Woodland Park Zoo Historic Carousel. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo The carousel, which features hand-carved horses and two chariots, was first constructed in 1918 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company and was only the 45th of its kind to be made. It has previously operated at the Cincinnati Zoo and the Great America Theme Park in Santa Clara, California. Eighteen years ago, Linda and Tom Allen, Candy Allen-Whitney and Thomas Allen and the Alleniana Foundation purchased the carousel and generously donated it to the zoo in the hope that generations of families would have the opportunity to experience a celebrated piece of A

Posted by Elizabeth Bacher, Communications Seattle’s tallest baby is now Seattle’s tallest 1 year old giraffe! Happy birthday Lulu! We love you! Sometimes you CAN have your cake and eat it too! Photo by John Loughlin/Woodland Park Zoo The birthday girl and her animal keepers celebrated the occasion with a specially-made giraffe cake: an ice fruit cake adorned with an assortment of her favorite treats, leaves, and leaf eater biscuits with her name carved out of apple slices and the centerpiece #1 carved out of sweet potato. Delicious and nutritious! A cake fit for a giraffe. Photo by John Loughlin/Woodland Park Zoo.  Dad Dave, mom Tufani and aunt Olivia were all there to “help” her eat her cake! In September, Lulu will be old enough to move to a new zoo where she could eventually start her own family. Her future home will be Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Lincoln, Nebraska. This move is part of a recommendation made by the Giraffe Species Survival Plan, a conservation b

Posted by: Elizabeth Bacher, Staff Writer Meet Papú, our newest and smallest ambassador-in-training.  Hello Papú! Photo by Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/ Woodland Park Zoo Ambassador animals have an important role at Woodland Park Zoo—they allow visitors to have up-close experiences and serve as catalysts for educating about their species. By interacting with them, we learn more about their wild cousins. We learn more about ourselves and our impacts on the ecosystem. We are moved to protect them and the wild spaces they represent. Simply put, we love them and they inspire us to make conservation a priority in our lives. It’s a big responsibility. What does it take to become an ambassador—to fulfill such an important role connecting people to wildlife? The answers to these big questions can often be found in the littlest places—and in this case, an egg barely the size of a ping-pong ball. The tiny egg came to Woodland Park Zoo from Sacramento Zoo, where its parents were not able

Posted by Elizabeth Bacher, Communications It’s almost butterfly time at Woodland Park Zoo! Molbak’s Butterfly Garden will open for the season on May 25, 2018. You’ll be able to walk among nearly 500 free-flying butterflies representing at least 15 species native to North America. An arching tent structure will enclose a landscape of approximately 3,000 square feet filled with flowering plants provided by Molbak’s Garden + Home store in Woodinville. Behind the garden is the year-round Microsoft Pollinator Patio, where guests can enjoy a beautiful stroll among pollinator-friendly plants. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo https://www.zoo.org/butterflygarden  We asked our friends at Molbak’s to suggest their favorite flowering plants that provide lots of good food for butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and other pollinators. Here are five flowers to make your backyard a pollinator-perfect destination.  Agastache (Hyssop) Slender and stylish, the fragrant hyssop bl

Posted by: Elizabeth Bacher, communications While you’re getting to know our curious sloth bear cubs, Deemak and Kartick , we thought you’d also like to know more about their wild cousins and how Woodland Park Zoo is working with conservation partners on the ground in their native habitat to help to protect them. Sloth bears are endangered, mostly due to habitat loss or degradation from human expansion, retaliation from human-bear conflict and to a lesser degree, poaching.   It is believed that no more than 10,000-20,000 sloth bears remain in the wild. That’s one of the reasons why Woodland Park Zoo partners with a conservation organization like Wildlife SOS . Currently, the research study that Wildlife SOS is conducting focuses on the two types of dens that wild sloth bears use – maternal dens which are used to give birth and raise cubs, and day dens which are used as a place to safely rest during daylight hours when sloth bears are not as active. Here is some new ca

Posted by Elizabeth Bacher, Communications Leo, with Yola and Nadiri in the background, 2016 photo by Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren, Woodland Park Zoo. Update on Leo’s passing We’d like to share preliminary necropsy (animal autopsy) findings with you regarding our 40-year-old male gorilla, Leo, who passed away on the evening of March 29 after a brief illness. The most significant post-mortem findings indicate the upper middle-age gorilla died from an aortic aneurysm—the internal rupture of the wall of the ascending aorta, the major artery exiting the heart. “The aortic dissection was extensive, extending into the descending aorta, down as far as the lower back region of Leo,” says Dr. Darin Collins, Woodland Park Zoo’s director of animal health. Heart disease emerged as a disease of concern and a major cause of death among all four great apes (gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos) in the early 1990s. In 1991, Woodland Park Zoo lost a male gorilla in his ‘20s due t