Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Gorillas are known for their knuckle-walking on the ground, but they are also adept at climbing when they need to navigate through trees, a sometimes surprising sight given their mass. Have you ever spotted one of our gorillas up in the trees? Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo.

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 Those burlap bags you often see our orangutans with might seem out of place, but our orangutans use them as they might use leaves in the wild—as blankets, bedding, umbrellas, sun shields and even privacy curtains. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Ever hear cackling in the Tropical Rain Forest exhibit? Many visitors do not realize that intense sound is coming from our red ruffed lemurs . Red ruffed lemurs communicate to each other with a complex system of at least 12 different vocalizations that include low grunts, gurgling sounds and that cackle-like roar. Photo by Dennis Dow/WPZ

Posted by: Carolyn Sellar, Zookeeper In February we blogged about the departure of gorilla Naku from Woodland Park Zoo to start a new family in Milwaukee. Here’s an update on how she’s transitioning! The entertaining and rambunctious Naku, a 10-year-old female western lowland gorilla , went to Milwaukee County Zoo at the end of June to begin a new family with Cassius, Milwaukee’s 25-year-old resident male. She had a very smooth flight there and after her standard quarantine at the zoo, she was transferred to their gorilla unit where introductions are now in progress. The introductions have been going very well and Naku is now part of a group with both Cassius (shown above) and another female named Femelle. She spends all day with both the other gorillas, and for now spends the night just with Femelle, but soon they will all be spending the night together. In fact, it is often difficult to separate Naku from Cassius! She must be smitten! If things progress the way they ha

Posted by: Martin Ramirez, Animal Curator Kyle in his exhibit after surgery. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo.  If you have been out to the African Savanna exhibit recently, you may have noticed a change—one of our patas monkeys now has only one arm. We thought you might have some questions about what happened to him, so we’d like to share with you his story. Kyle, a 6-year-old, male patas monkey, was recently being treated for a severe infection in the bones around his right shoulder. After the usual antibiotic treatments failed to stop the spread of the infection—jeopardizing his overall health—our keeper staff, animal health team and consulting veterinarians from the Animal Surgical Clinic determined the best course of action would be to amputate Kyle’s right limb. Kyle (left) with partner Alexa. Photo by Anne Nichols/Woodland Park Zoo. Why amputation? Not only would it rid Kyle’s body of the infection quickly, but it would also prevent the return of the life-threatening bloo

Posted by: Ric Brewer, Communications For long-time Seattle residents, you have probably experienced first hand the difference between Woodland Park Zoo seen on the left approximately 50 years ago and today’s zoo seen on the right. The side-by-side comparison above shows how profoundly different a type of exhibit the old Monkey Island (seen here circa the mid 1960s) on the left is from the same space after major modifications that now makes up the lemur exhibit—part of our Tropical Rain Forest—seen on the right. Monkey Island was a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project completed in the early 1940s. It housed several different species of monkeys over the years and old-timers might recall the bright yellow schoolhouse that perched at the summit of the faux rock, complete with a bell that the monkeys would ring. As zoos evolved into organizations that actively championed environmental causes, exhibits such as this began to be replaced with exhibits much more evocative of the

Posted by: Carolyn Austin Sellar, Zookeeper This is the third entry in our new Animal Spotlight series... For as long as many of you may remember, Pete the male silverback gorilla, has headed up our Gorilla Group 1 . This year Pete turned 43 and is the oldest male gorilla at Woodland Park Zoo. Despite having some of the typical complaints of old age, including arthritis and yes, even developing a bald spot (I know hair loss for a male can be embarrassing), Pete is in relatively good health considering his age. The average life span for gorillas in captivity is late 30s to early 40s with females living longer than males. In the wild, it is roughly 30-35 years. The longest living captive gorilla on record was 55 (a female). Although Pete is well into his golden years, he is still going strong. He has always been, and continues to be, the gentleman gorilla and always says “Thank you, tastes good!” by way of his grunts of contentment while he eats. When Pete first came to Woodland Park Zo

Posted by: Carolyn Austin Sellar, Zookeeper This is the second installment of our new series: Animal Spotlight . Everybody knows Nina… if not by name then by sight. Yes, she has wrinkles (we call them her “distinguishing character lines”). Yes, she is a little bit round (hey, she’s short for her weight). She often holds a stick (every 43-year-old female should have a scepter or staff). Her favorite colors are red and pink, and yes, her tongue does stick out when she is relaxed! At the gorilla unit we can all tell Nina’s mood by what we call the “tongue gauge.” When annoyed, her lips purse tightly and her tongue is completely in her mouth. But when relaxed and happy, out comes the tongue! This year Nina turned 43. She is our oldest female western lowland gorilla here at Woodland Park Zoo. Now a great grandmother, Nina has seen a lot of changes at the zoo. She is very relaxed and unfazed when the younger female gorillas act up and is considered the solid rock in the group. She keeps eve

Posted by: Carolyn Sellar, Zookeeper Introducing a new series to the blog... Who is: a rowdy 10-year-old gorilla ; with ears that stick out; a female in silverback Pete’s troop ; who is leaving soon to start a new family? Our girl Naku (aka Nakunator or Naki, as her keepers sometimes call her)! This spring Naku will fly to Milwaukee, the land of cheese, breweries, and Laverne and Shirley. There she’ll be introduced to some new gorillas in hopes of starting a brand new family, including handsome resident male gorilla, Cassius, and female Shalia, who is also arriving new to Milwaukee, coming from Toronto. Naku’s 10th birthday was a very significant gorilla birthday. Her first double-digit birthday is a milestone that means she is mature enough physically and emotionally to become part of the cooperative breeding effort known as the Gorillas Species Survival Plan . This timing corresponds to the age at which wild gorillas begin to venture off to look for a new group to belong to, or begin

Posted by: Roxanne Murphy, Community Relations Here at Woodland Park Zoo, we develop many sizes of partnerships with all sorts of community organizations, but sometimes the sweetest of such partnerships are the simplest and directly in our neck of the woods. This is exactly what we realized when we recently got a call from Herkimer Coffee , located just a few blocks away from the zoo on Phinney Avenue. Sure, several zoo staffers and volunteers get their morning or afternoon pick-me-ups here, but Herkimer manager Chad Smith was thinking about the zoo on a deeper level. He and his family not only love the zoo as members, they’ve also spent time here and on their own learning about orangutans . They share our same strong affinity for these inspiring and intelligent primates. Chad specifically noticed that we use burlap bags in our orangutan and gorilla exhibits. In case you didn’t know, orangutans are arboreal, living in treetops, and they rarely come down from the trees. When they do, o

Posted by: Ric Brewer, Communications If you've been to our Tropical Rain Forest building, you have no doubt been drawn to the lustrously-maned little monkey from Brazil, the golden lion tamarin . But did you know that these primates are ambassadors for one of the most well-documented and inspiring stories of conservation success in the wild? It goes back to the late 1970s, when population surveys conducted in tamarins' shrinking rain forest habitat located along a sliver of coastal Brazil discovered that these vibrantly colored primates were in severe decline: only 200-600 still existed in total and with the continued destruction of their habitat, their extinction looked imminent. But a consortium of zoos , including Woodland Park Zoo, banded together to captive-breed and release genetically diverse golden lion tamarins back into Brazil, along with creating habitat protection plans to ensure there would be places for them to grow their population. Woodland Park Zoo contributed

With help from his parents and the full support of Woodland Park Zoo, 3-year-old pre-school philanthropist Lucas Engles-Klann would like to invite you to his second annual Dine Out for Animals fundraiser... Hi all you Zoo Fans! I love animals, and I know you do, too. Although I'm only 3 years old, I want to help Woodland Park Zoo help people learn how to save animals and the habitats they need for their homes. So please come to my second annual Dine Out for Animals fundraising dinner at Elemental, next Sunday June 28 from 3:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. All proceeds will help the zoo care for its amazing primates--including my friends, the gorillas. Love, Lucas Engles-Klann Lucas's love of gorillas inspired him to host the first annual Dine Out for Animals last year, where money raised went to support the creation of a new "jungle gym" for our gorillas . Now Lucas is ready to expand his project to support other primates at Woodland Park Zoo, and he is hosting the second annua

Posted by: Ric Brewer, Communications You may remember the   high-flying tale   of Leonel, Woodland Park Zoo’s newest   western lowland gorilla , from back when he arrived via Fed-Ex in the winter. We promised you an update, and, though Leonel is still behind the scenes, he has certainly been making strides toward adjusting to his new life at Woodland Park Zoo. Hugh Bailey, lead keeper for the gorilla unit says that Leonel has adapted "better than expected" to his new situation. "He had a lot to get used to," remarked Bailey, saying that Leo has become comfortable with a host of new sounds including the roar of nearby lions, and new people. Leo is also getting used to new gorillas in his life. Due to the nature of gorilla social dynamics, the keepers are proceeding slowly with introductions, beginning with visual introductions and seeing how this plays out before going to the next steps of physical introductions. "We really do this at their pace; they n

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications When FedEx pilot Captain Mark Abbott heard from his sister Jo Roach, a zookeeper at Woodland Park Zoo, that a special delivery was due to the zoo in December, he pulled some strings to get in on the momentous occasion: the arrival of Leonel, a 30-year-old silverback gorilla, via FedEx to Seattle (Leonel pictured left). The brother-sister team is no stranger to great apes: Jo as a keeper at WPZ for 19 years and Captain Abbott who lived with his wife in Africa for years. But for the first time, their work converged as Woodland Park Zoo made preparations to ship Leonel from his last temporary zoo location in Columbus to his new permanent home in Seattle. Leonel flew FedEx to Seattle in the company of a zoo vet and one of his new keepers-to-be, Traci Amerine. This very special cargo was novel for 14-year FedEx veteran Captain Abbott—he had flown with horses before, but never an animal quite like Leo. Though he could not see or hear Leonel while in

Looks like Woodland Park Zoo's new female siamang has taken to the trees after her recent introduction to the outdoor exhibit. Volunteer photographer Dennis Dow, who snapped these shots, said "She seemed very comfortable as well as athletic as she swung through the branches." You can find the siamangs in the Trail of Vines exhibit in Woodland Park Zoo's Tropical Asia biome. Photos by Dennis Dow.

Meet Briony, Woodland Park Zoo’s new female siamang . Briony arrived at the zoo last fall in need of a new partner after having lost her previous mate. She has been adjusting well to life with Simon, Woodland Park Zoo’s male siamang. This week, Briony has been adventuring outside the familiarity of her indoor exhibit space to the beautiful outdoor landscape the siamangs share—though so far she has stayed pretty close to the door! Over time, as Briony builds her bond with Simon and becomes more comfortable with her outdoor exhibit, we hope to find the two high up in the treetops singing their new duet together. Siamang vocals are so powerful that many zoo neighbors in Phinney Ridge and Fremont are able to hear the siamangs’ song in their homes. Sutera, Simon’s previous partner, was called on a Species Survival Plan (SSP) mission to Little Rock Zoo to be matched with a 5-year-old male. This pair has been selected by the SSP as a good match to best preserve genetic diversity in the capti

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Don't miss Seattle's first ever animal art show ! Not art about animals, but art by animals. You'll find more than 20 pieces on display and for sale Feb. 7 - March 5 at Art/Not Terminal Gallery (2045 Westlake Ave). From framed animal footprints, to colorful orangutan and elephant originals, this gallery presentation is unlike any art show you've ever seen. Join us for a wine & cheese reception (provided by PengWine ) on opening night Feb. 7, 7-10 p.m . Meet the keepers who will discuss the animals' art--their favorite techniques and independent styles--and the big idea behind it all: ongoing enrichment to engage and stimulate the animals in the zoo's care. Proceeds from the art show will help fund the combined conferences of the American Association of Zoo Keepers and International Congress of Zookeepers (AAZK/ICZ) being hosted by Woodland Park Zoo and the Puget Sound Chapter of AAZK in September 2009. This w