Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by Elizabeth Bacher, Communications Written by Stephanie Payne, gorilla keeper Note from the Editor: It’s time for an update on Woodland Park Zoo’s gorilla family. Beginning on Tuesday, April 23, our eight western lowland gorillas will be off public view for a few weeks to accommodate some improvements to their exhibit areas. While you might not be able to see them from the public viewing areas, a lot has been going on behind the scenes. Animal keeper Stephanie Payne brings us up to speed on relationship dynamics within the group and what the future might hold for them. Uzumma enjoys a snack while surveying the view from above. Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo Spring is in the air for the gorillas! Whether it’s seeing Vip lying in the sun, Akenji tearing apart the barberry in order to get to their blooms, or Uzumma enjoying the view from the highest perches of the climbing structures in her habitat, it is clear that we’re all enjoying the warmer te

By: Alejandro Grajal, PhD, President and CEO, Woodland Park Zoo Illegal wildlife poaching is one of the leading threats facing endangered species. Experts estimate the sale of products harvested from endangered species (items such as tusks, pelts, horns, and body parts) on the black market to be in the billions of dollars annually. One of the most effective ways to end the bloody practice of killing endangered species is to enforce bans on wildlife trafficking. That is exactly what voters in Washington state did when they passed I-1401 in 2015 with more than 70% of the vote.  Watch video of the press conference: https://youtu.be/mH96_-OEcpc Thanks to voters, our state enforcement officials at Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have the authority to prohibit and prevent the sale of animal parts from endangered species such as elephants, rhinos, pangolins, tigers, marine turtles and others. I am proud of their efforts and those of Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson to

Posted by Meghan Sawyer, Communications Woodland Park Zoo’s baby Matschie’s tree kangaroo is now venturing out of his mother’s pouch! In time, the joey named Ecki will leave the pouch permanently as he grows more confident and independent. Tree kangaroo joey, Ecki, peeks out of his mother's pouch. Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo “Ecki” is named after a beloved elder from one of the remote Papua New Guinea villages that works with Woodland Park Zoo to help protect tree kangaroos and their habitat. The joey and his mother, 11-year-old Elanna, live behind the scenes in an off-view habitat at the zoo. A joey’s journey  While Ecki is just now being introduced to the world, he was actually born eight months ago. When joeys are born, they’re only the size of a jelly bean! Within just one to two minutes of birth, that tiny baby has to crawl from the birth canal, through the mother’s fur, and into the pouch to immediately begin nursing. That’s exactly what Eck

Posted by: Peter Zahler, Vice President of Conservation Initiatives Woodland Park Zoo is delighted to announce the good news that the highly threatened mountain gorilla has reached the point in its recovery that its status has been downgraded from Critically Endangered to Endangered. Mountain gorillas in the wild. Photo credit: Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund The decision was made by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the international organization that tracks the conservation status of animal and plant species. The decision shows the slow but steady increase in the population of this great ape due to concentrated protection efforts over the last few decades. There are still only about a thousand mountain gorillas left in the wild, found in a few scattered populations in the mountains of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in central Africa. The mountain gorillas have been facing threats from poaching, habitat destruction, and r

Written by Stephanie Payne-Jacobs, gorilla keeper Note from the Editor: We told you earlier about Kwame , a ninteen-year-old male western lowland gorilla who came to Woodland Park Zoo from Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. just last month. That story picks up here in the words of Stephanie Payne-Jacobs, one of our dedicated gorilla keepers. She reminds us of why Kwame was chosen to be the new silverback for a group of our females and then takes us through their first days of forming a family.  Kwame, pictured at his former home, Smithsonian's National Zoo/Photo: Skip Brown Beginnings Our search for a new silverback, the adult male leader of a gorilla family, began just weeks after Leo’s passing in March 2018. While still processing the loss of sweet Leo, we knew we had to begin the search in order to bring a sense of normality back to the lives of the females Leo had left behind. These females, 22-year-old Nadiri, 17-year-old Akenji, Uzumma, who is

Posted by Stephanie Payne-Jacobs, gorilla keeper 39-year-old Vip, named for being a Very Important Primate, is back home in his exhibit after a long recovery. Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo After a year of challenges and changes in the gorilla unit, we have much to celebrate this month. The first is the return of 39-year-old male, Vip, to the East gorilla exhibit, along with 33-year-old female, Jumoke. Vip, who is the father of seven daughters, including our own 17-year-old Akenji, 10-year-old Uzumma and nearly 3-year-old Yola, has been off view for more than a year now—since June of 2017. That’s when he underwent a lifesaving surgery due to an infection within a long-established umbilical hernia. Vip was born with this hernia in 1979, and it had remained stable since he came to Woodland Park Zoo in 1996. Vip underwent lifesaving surgery in 2017. Photo: Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo In the summer of 2017, his care team noticed a subtle change in t

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

Every single day, we work to protect wild animals and wild places.  This week, and on Endangered Species Day, May 18, we can celebrate many conservation success stories, but there is more work to do. Taj wading into Assam Rhino Reserve. Photo by Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo. Thanks to the Endangered Species Act and the hard work of conservationists and activists, the bald eagle, green sea turtle, American alligator, peregrine falcon, and many other species were kept from disappearing forever. Your zoo has given Western pond turtles a head start and helped protect thousands of acres of pristine cloud forests. We would do anything for animals, and with your support, we can. Getting ready to release a pond turtle into a protected Washington wetland. Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo. Working with conservationists and researchers, Woodland Park Zoo focuses on a conservation strategy that includes: habitat and species conservation, research