Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications We’re still winding down from our 34th annual Jungle Party , held last Friday on the zoo’s North Meadow with nearly a thousand zoo supporters in attendance. What a party! Even in the heat, we enjoyed dining al fresco with up-close animal encounters and tours, while the graceful Versatile Arts aerialists entertained. This year’s theme, “Big Claws, Big Cause,” commemorated the felines living at the zoo such as snow leopards, jaguars and Sumatran tigers. And our guests must have been inspired by the theme, because some ferocious bidding on our amazing auction items helped bring our fundraising total to $1.7 million—exceeding our goal by $300,000! Jungle Partiers were especially moved by the animal care focus of our Fund-Our-Future effort this year, with a record-breaking $832,000 (of the $1.7 million raised) dedicated to the fund which will help us support the zoo’s exceptional animal and veterinary care and exhibit upgrades. The funds will go

Posted by: Gigi Allianic, Communications Our five Humboldt penguin chicks have joined the adult colony and can now be viewed on exhibit during zoo hours. To get them used to being in the water before they debuted, the chicks had round-the-clock access to a shallow pool behind the scenes at the exhibit where they could practice floating and swimming in a more controlled and less crowded environment. See them in action here… The youngest of the chicks, a male hatched to parents Diego and Radar on April 25, is in need of a name and we’re asking our online fans to help. Fans can submit name suggestions for the chick to the wall of our Facebook page beginning July 7 through July 8, noon PST. To honor the Humboldt penguin’s Chilean and Peruvian native range, fans are encouraged to submit Spanish-language names. Penguin keepers will select their three favorite names from the submissions, and fans will then vote on July 9 on the zoo’s Facebook page for their top pick. So start thinking up s

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications You cast the votes, we tallied (for hours and hours!), and it’s decided. Today we revealed the names you selected for our new mob of four female and four male meerkats—though the meerkats were far more interested in the watermelon enrichment they received as part of our Red, White & Zoo celebration! The winning names, in order of most votes received: ZIMBA (Zambian town) NATA (southern African river) MOLOPO (southern African river) KIWANO (Kalahari fruit) KALAHARI (African desert) DINAWA (“beans” in Tswana) ACACIA (African tree) NGAMI (lake in Botswana) We received more than 2,600 ballots through our naming contest presented by U.S. Bank and The Seattle Times that ran from June 1-June 15. You had the chance to select up to eight of your favorite names from 16 choices that reflected the meerkats’ native southern African habitat. We counted more than 16,600 individual votes in total for the different names! Big thanks to you all for voting

Posted by: Bobbi Miller, Conservation While we celebrate the hatching of our new red-crowned crane here at the zoo, our Partner for Wildlife Sergei Smirenski of Cranes of Asia reminds us of just how precarious the balance between habitat and population is in the wild. Recently he told us of a devastating fire that burned through 90% of Muraviovka Park, a protected area of critical crane habitat in the Russian Far East. The Amur region of Russia is an important nesting ground for the endangered red-crowned crane. Muraviovka Park was established in part to protect the diminishing wetlands which serve as a critical habitat for the crane, with an estimated population of only 2,700 left in the wild. Due to an ongoing drought, fires started by hunters or nearby farmers can present a potentially habitat destroying event that takes an already endangered species even closer to the brink. And that is exactly what happened on the afternoon of May 2 when smoke appeared on the horizon. According

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

Posted by: Ric Brewer, Communications Did you ever wonder what it takes to provide food for the nearly 1,100 animals at Woodland Park Zoo? How does the zoo provide nutritionally balanced and natural diets that range from hundreds of pounds a day of hay for the elephants, oryx, gazelles and other animals to nettle leaf powder for our Partula snails? Where does it all come from? With nearly 300 different animal species, our staff works hard to provide all the animals with the opportunity to display natural behaviors, which includes replicating as closely as possible what they would eat in the wild. But there's even more to it than finding just the right veggies, fruits and other foods. When planning the diets for our animals, three factors are taken into consideration: 1) what is the best, nutritionally balanced diet for this particular species? 2) are those foods available? 3) can we find this food locally? What is the impact on our carbon footprint? Are we always able to make all

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Eating fish and swimming around come naturally to our Humboldt penguin chicks . But to make sure they are getting the best possible diet and are comfortable and confident in their surroundings, our keepers are currently giving the chicks some one-on-one attention behind the scenes before they join the adults out on exhibit. The two oldest chicks , hatched April Fool’s Day and Easter Sunday, have lost their downy feathers and now have waterproof feathers for swimming. To get them used to being in water, the chicks have round-the-clock access to a shallow pool behind the scenes at the exhibit, where they can practice floating and swimming. And while eating is no problem for these chicks, they do now have to learn how to accept fish directly from their keepers like all the adult penguins do. Hand feeding is especially useful because it allows the keepers to keep track of just how much each bird is eating as well as ensuring that each individual r