Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Woodland Park Zoo celebrated a significant achievement on Memorial Day: the birth of snow leopard cubs, a male and a female! We had a chance to take some photos today when zoo veterinarians performed a neonatal examination on the cubs as part of the excellent animal and medical care program at the zoo. They’ve been given a clean bill of health! Dr. Kelly Helmick, Associate Veterinarian, told us that the cubs are healthy and the maternal care appears to be very good. The male weighed in at 4 lbs and the female at 3.6 lbs today. The 3-week-old cubs represent the first offspring for both the 4-year-old mother, Helen, and 3-year-old father, Tom. This is an important achievement for conservation as well—the cubs’ birth is part of our work with the Association of Zoos & Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan to bolster the genetic diversity of this endangered species. Woodland Park Zoo participates in 39 Species Survival Plans, which also involve coll

Posted by: Sue Andersen, Bug World Keeper Jumping stick babies hatched last week, and right now keepers are tending to them behind the scenes while mom and dad are on display in the Bug World exhibit. Here’s a sneak peek of what they look like: (That's baby on the keeper's hand, mom in the middle, and dad on the right) This amazing "stick bug" is actually a grasshopper species. This insect, native to the upper Amazon Basin of Peru and Ecuador, is a great example of sexual dimorphism, which in this case means the female and male look like different animals. The male is smaller and green with white "face" marking, and the female is several times the male’s size, tan-dark brown, and looks exactly like a stick! She even has markings that look like bud scars. The eggs of this species take nine months to a year to hatch, and the female oviposits them in the soil, burrowing her abdomen in the substrate all the way to her rear legs! Woodland Park Zoo has kept these

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Penguins can’t fly, but this one can… And most penguins wear “tuxedos,” but this one sports a robe… Come see dozens of these colorful and inventive penguin artworks unveiled this Friday, when Woodland Park Zoo and The Greenwood Collective launch our community art project— Penguins on the March . Sixty-two artists from across Seattle, ranging in ages 8 to 80, designed and decorated these 22” penguin statues that will migrate across Seattle neighborhoods this summer. But first, they’ll be unveiled at the base of the Space Needle on Friday, June 12 from 10 a.m. to noon, and later that evening at The Greenwood Collective during the Art Walk, from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Both events are free to the public, so come on by! Then the penguins will migrate to outdoor locations across Ballard, Fremont, Greenwood and Phinney Ridge throughout the summer, spreading art and wildlife awareness. And brightening your day! Inspired by Woodland Park Zoo’s all new Humbol

Posted by: Mark Myers, Curator What looks like an oversized cottonball with a beak is actually Woodland Park Zoo's first ever Tawny frogmouth hatchling! Keepers had been artificially incubating the egg for about 25 days (shorter than the usual 28-30 day incubation period), and within an hour of hatching Thursday morning, returned it to the nest where the parents have now taken over care. The parents, who came to us earlier this year from the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, are very attentive and defensive of the chick so far. Based on the chick’s weight gain, they also seem to be doing a good job of feeding their new hatchling. Woodland Park Zoo is one of only four zoos to have successfully bred this species in the last six years. As Population Management Plan coordinator for this species across all Association of Zoos & Aquariums institutions, I can say that this hatching represents a very significant achievement for the North American zoo population. Native to Australia, t

Posted by: Robin Christy, Zoo Adventure Instructor What goes on at the zoo after the gates close? Wouldn't you like to know? Well, here is your chance to find out—sneak on in to the zoo to have a peek behind closed doors at a Zoo Overnight Adventure . Ok, so I work at the zoo and you might think that spending the night here would be, well, just a few too many hours! Oh, but you would be wrong! I recently had the opportunity to become one of the few elite members of the Wilderness Survival Skills Zoo Adventures Overnight Special Services Team (yes, it’s a mouthful). And let me tell you, this small group of carefully selected individuals puts on an evening to remember! There is nothing like grabbing a special red-lens flashlight and heading out for a private adventure on zoo grounds as the sun slowly disappears from the sky. Imagine visiting the animals and taking your time to relax and observe without the thousands of other zoo visitors who have now gone home for the night! This, as

Posted by: Ric Brewer, Communications This past Saturday we celebrated the fourth Bear Affair, our annual event that provides tons of information about bear species around the world. The centerpiece of the event, and perhaps the most highly anticipated activity by zoo visitors (and maybe the bears!) is the non-safe campground demonstration. This entails recreating a human campsite within the brown bear exhibit in our Northern Trail zone. The campsite is complete, including a tent, barbeque equipment, clothing, sleeping bag and a cooler---basically all the equipment one would take along on a camping trip. The twist is that instead of storing food safely away from bears--in airtight bags 15 feet or more up in a tree, in bear safe containers--everything is left casually around the site. And this is what happened... Julie Hopkins, a field coordinator from our conservation partner, the Grizzly Bear Outreach Project , narrated as the bears were let out to discover the bounty left strewn abou

Posted by Zookeeper Eric Kowalczyk Video by Natalia Balodis Photo by Dennis Dow 7 May 2009, 1445hrs: Zoo visitor Natalia Balodis of Washougal, W A, was lucky enough to be at the right spot at the right time. Prior to this short video taken in the walk-thru of the Conservation Aviary, the brown female Cabot’s tragopan ( Tragopan caboti ) was observed crouched low in the grass, pumping her wings (“wing whirring”); she was facing one of the large boulders in the center of the enclosure. The colorful male was on the other side of this boulder and began his frontal courtship display. This begins with the distending of his throat wattle until it hangs like a fleshy bib in front of his breast. Then he began pumping his wings up and down along the sides of his body. Bright blue fleshy “horns” emerged from the top of his head. As the wing flapping increased in speed, he stood as tall as possible and then charged around the boulder towards the female. This can be viewed in this 21 second clip. C