Woodland Park Zoo Blog

The zoo is celebrating 25 years of partnership with the Snow Leopard Trust, the Seattle-based organization dedicated to the preservation of snow leopards and snow leopard habitat. By working with the people living in snow leopard areas, SLT has influenced a number of programs including anti-poaching initiatives and creating opportunities for indigenous people in Tibet and other countries in snow leopard range countries to earn money from sources other than poaching. Join us and the Snow Leopard Trust on Saturday, August 18 to celebrate Snow Leopard Day at the Zoo! Lots of crafts, entertainment and information on how you can help snow leopards.

Our little female tapir calf, born July 3, made her unofficial public debut with her mother today in the Tropical Asia exhibit. Now weighing in at a hefty 61 pounds, the baby stuck close to her mom, but soon ventured up to the glass viewing area to the delight of zoo visitors (and staff, too!). With the nice r weather, we hope to have her out daily (weather permitting, of course). Tomorrow she will hopefully be on public view with her mom beginning around noon. You'll notice the spots and stripes on her--very different from the black with white "belt" on the adults. This is used as camouflage---much like the spots on a deer fawn---until they start to fade and turn black and white similar to their parents. Malayan tapirs are endangered in their range due to hunting and habitat loss.

Butterflies & Blooms is one of the zoo's most popular exhibits. Because the butterflies are native species to the U.S., the exhibit is seasonal, operating in the summer months when these species would normally be breeding and flying. With several dozen species, from the striped zebra longwings to even an occasional dramatic-looking luna moth, the B&B tent is a nice respite from walking around the zoo's 92 acres!

The release of 50 western pond turtles went well into a protected pond in Pierce County. Due to our headstarting program, their population has grown from a low of around 150 to more than 1,500! Here, zoo staff member Walter English paints a tracking number on one of the juvenile turtles shells. Thanks for the zoo's curator of reptiles, Dana Payne, for sending this photo.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 17, the zoo will be releasing endangered western pond turtles (Clemmys marmorata), some with tiny radio transmitters glued to their shells, into the wild in Pierce County. A portion of the group of 50 turtles will be released in Mason County. The 10-month-old turtles were collected from the wild as hatchlings and “head started” at Woodland Park Zoo to improve their chance of survival in the wild. Invasive bull frogs often eat the young hatchlings, so the headstarting provides a way for the young turtles to grow to a size that is too large for the frogs to consume. The turtles currently weigh about 2 ounces. Woodland Park Zoo, along with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon Zoo have collaborated for more than a decade, raising turtles and letting them loose in protected ponds in Washington. From an all-time low of only around 100 turtles left in the state, this headstarting has swelled their population to more than 1,200!

Today was the perfect day for Hadiah to make her first forays out into the outdoor tiger exhibit. She rambunctiously played, sniffed and rolled around in the bushes while visitors looked on. Only around 400 Sumatran tigers still exist in the wild; each birth is cause for celebration to help keep genetically viable populations intact. How can you help tigers? Watch what you buy (for example, plam oil, which is in thousands of products, comes primarily from Indonesia where forests are being destroyed to plant palm oil plantations, so look for foods and products that do not contain it); don't buy exotic wood products that aren't from certified sustainable forestry practices; donate to organizations helping to conserve tigers and their habitat.

Hadiah, our 7-month-old Sumatran tiger, will make her outdoor debut on Wednesday, July 11. She and her mother, Jo Jo, will romp and play (and probably do a lot of sleeping in our recent heatwave!). She will be out daily from around 11:00 a.m. to around 2:00 p.m. Come and visit them!