Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Zoo Corps ...and it's hungry. Teams of Zoo Corps interns, zoo keepers and volunteers battle hordes of slimy slugs and strangling weeds to find the most perfect, tiny leaves for its greedy mandible. W ho is this ominous-sounding creature, you may ask? It's the Oregon silverspot butterfly, a threatened species that lives only in the meadowlands of Oregon , where its sole source of food—the Western Blue Violet—is found. Since 1999 Woodland Park Zoo has had a behind-the-scenes program involving hatching, raising and releasing into the wild batches of silverspot caterpillars to help boost the wild population. Because caterpillars of all species are known for being voracious eaters, a major part of the program is harvesting leaves from the violets grown by our Horticulture Department and feeding them to the ever-hungry larvae. There’s also a fair bit of slug relocating (Zoo Corps has a competition to see who can take the most slugs from the deliciou

It’s time for a giveaway! And this one is sweet. You can win… Two (2) adult day passes to Woodland Park Zoo Two (2) WaMu ZooTunes tickets for The Avett Brothers with Shawn Mullins (8/27/08) VIP seating for the concert! To enter, just correctly answer the zoo trivia questions below. Two winners will be drawn at random from all eligible respondents with the correct answers. Not sure of the answers? Browse our website or visit the zoo to look for hints. (Click on the questions to view larger--may open new window.) Think you know the answers? Email webkeeper@zoo.org with your guesses through Sunday, 8/17, 10 p.m. PST. Only one entry per individual, so encourage your friends to enter as well! Two winners will be selected at random on Mon., 8/18. Good luck!

Most people don't think of snails as being endangered, particularly if they are battling them as they eat through their Swiss chard patch. But Woodland Park Zoo is helping a species of Tahitian tree snail back into their rightful place. The Partula snail used to be represented by around 100 different species in the islands of French Polynesia. But thanks to (or no thanks, in this case) an invasive, and carnivorous, snail, Partula were reduced to about five species in less than 10 years in the 1980s, and only remnant survivors of those few remaining populations. Thankfully, scientists recognized what was happening and rescued about 17 species before they disappeared. Our zoo has been the U.S. hub at captive breeding efforts for one of these species, Partula nodosa, and currently has more than 900 of these half-inch long critters behind the scenes in Bug World. A rarity in the snail world, Partula give live birth to a single offspring every 4-6 weeks, as opposed to a typical brown

Posted by: Jona Jacobson, Woodland Park Zoo Conservation “Komodo lizards are…big. Very big. There’s one on Komodo at the moment which is over twelve feet long and stands about a yard high, which you can’t help but feel is entirely the wrong size for a lizard to be.” - Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See While big, most Komodo dragons don’t reach quite that size, averaging between 6.5 to 10 feet and weighing in at around 150 pounds. Komodo dragons are the vultures of the four Eastern Indonesian islands they inhabit: they eat carrion . That doesn’t mean, however, they won’t eat other things as well, including hatchling Komodo dragons, whose survival instincts have them scurrying up trees, where they stay until large enough to not be such easy snacks for the adults. WPZ has provided funding to the Komodo Survival Program since 2000. The group’s recent study examines the spatial ecology of juvenile Komodo dragons. Huh, you ask? Field researchers captured 5 hatchling an

We were greeted with sunny skies yesterday morning for this summer's western pond turtle release. Twelve endangered turtles, headstarted for a year at the zoo, were taken to a protected pond site in the Lakewood area for the next step in their life cycle : life in the wild. A full contingent of helpers, including zoo staff and volunteers, 7-year-old Aimee Kessler and project donor Maryanne Tagney Jones, received the honor of gently putting the little turtles, weighing around 2 ounces each, into the waters of their new home. State biologists Michelle Tirhi and Tammy Schmidt checked over the turtles, ensuring that they were correctly marked (small notches are made in their shells for future identification, as well as tiny numbered tags). Michelle notes that the project has had a 95% rate of success in raising turtles since 1996. But we'll let the photos speak for the day. The zoo has proudly worked on this project for nearly two decades, increasing the wild population of these

Today's the day for about 50 western pond turtles to returned to the wild. For more than a decade, the zoo has raised state endangered western pond turtles and then released them into protected pond sites in southwestern Washington state. At that time, only about 100-150 of the turtles, which measure about 8-inches long as adults and can live nearly four decades or so, were left in just a few spots in Washington (other subspecies live in Oregon and California, but are having similar problems). Why endangered? Introduced critters such as bullfrogs would gulp up the tiny hatchlings, about the size of a 50 cent piece. Also the drastic decline in wetlands and ponds to residential and agricultural development put a serious crimp in living places. Thanks to the efforts of the zoo, Frank Slavens, former reptile curator here and his wife Kate, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Oregon Zoo and many others individuals, there are now an estimated 1,400 turtles living in sites in

Last night's concert was great! Both opening act Josh Ritter and featured performer Andrew Bird were at the top of their game and the weather, despite the rather foreboding clouds that had been around all day, actually warmed up a bit. The sold out crowd seemed to appreciate their talents as well. I was working the zoo's Conservation booth, talking with people about the more than three dozen field projects the zoo supports. It was remarkable how many people already knew a lot about several of the projects, including our work with the Snow Leopard Trust and the Grizzly Bear Outreach Project , but we were able to provide some details about other projects, too, including the Western Pond Turtle Recovery Project and the Oregon Silverspot Butterfly Project . The next three concerts are sold out, but The Avett Brothers on August 27 still has tickets available at our sponsor, Metropolitan Markets . (Photo of Josh Ritter and Andrew Bird by Ryan Hawk)