Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Yesterday our 3-year-old, female red panda underwent a full physical examination by our animal health team as part of our preventive care program for all animals at the zoo. The routine check-up included a weigh-in, blood work and radiographs. The healthy red panda came in at 27 pounds. As part of our efforts in the Red Panda Species Survival Plan, this female will be paired with our 6-year-old male in an off-view area for their upcoming breeding season in the winter. Since these two have never had any offspring before, their genes are particularly valuable to maintaining genetic diversity in the red panda population. In the wild, fewer than 10,000 red pandas remain in their native habitat of bamboo forests in China, the Himalayas and Myanmar. Their numbers are declining due to deforestation, increased agriculture and cattle grazing, and continuing pressure from growing local populations. We can all do our part to help reduce our impact on wil

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Zoo Corps teen interns Garrett Brenden and Ariel Thompson stood at the edge of a pond in a south Puget Sound protected wildlife area yesterday and released from their hands something precious…hope for the endangered western pond turtle. Garrett (shown above) and Ariel have been working alongside zookeepers to raise 76 western pond turtles behind the scenes at the zoo as part of a headstart program to recover their wild population. Turtle hatchlings are collected from the wild then raised here until they are around 2 ounces—large enough to escape the mouths of bullfrogs and large-mouth bass—giving them an edge on surviving in the wild. Each summer, we take trips to several protected wildlife areas and release these headstarted turtles back into the wild where we continue to monitor them. Since starting the program in 1991, we’ve seen the population of western pond turtles grow from a dangerously low 150 to now 1,500—a positive sign that this c

Posted by: Jim Bennett, Marketing Zoomazium , our indoor, nature play space, serves thousands of kids every year, so our toys in there take quite a beating! To best serve our littlest zoo goers, we needed to replenish Zoomazium with quality, durable toys and local merchants Top Ten Toys answered the call to help us out. We are grateful to owner Allen Rickert and his staff who generously worked with Zoomazium Program Coordinator Kristi Dodds to find just the right selection of toys to donate to the zoo… Families can now enjoy these new toys at Zoomazium during zoo hours. For a bigger selection, head to Top Ten Toys just north of the zoo in the downtown Greenwood business district at 104 N. 85th Street. Thanks Top Ten Toys!

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications We’ve been watching the counter on our YouTube channel for the last few days waiting for the magical moment, and it’s finally here—we’ve reached 10 million video views! It all started back in 2006 when we launched our YouTube channel and one of our very first videos, “Cute Baby Tiger,” remains our most popular video to date: Now more than 60 videos later, we want to take the time to thank you all for watching and sharing our stories about the amazing animals at Woodland Park Zoo and the work we do to provide excellent animal care, conserve animals and habitats around the world, and provide engaging, educational experiences. We could not have done it without you! What animal or zoo topic would you like to see a video on next?

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Yesterday concluded National Zookeeper Week—a time to recognize and thank all the amazing keepers here at Woodland Park Zoo and beyond. They work hard every day to care for and enrich the lives of zoo animals , help to save and protect their wild counterparts, and connect with zoo visitors during their talks and public programs inspiring them to learn, care and act on behalf of wildlife everywhere. At our annual zookeeper week lunch, curator Nancy Hawkes announced the winner of the 2010 Keeper of the Year award—John Samaras. If you are a regular zoo blog reader, you have seen glimpses of John in our photos of the penguin chicks behind the scenes. That’s just one part of the fascinating and rewarding work he does at the zoo. What is it like to be a zookeeper? Read our Q&A with John: 1.) How long have you been a zookeeper? When did you start working at Woodland Park Zoo? I started in the zoo field in 1997 in maintenance at the Akron Zoo an

Posted by: Mark Myers, Curator This tiny, white puffball is a tawny frogmouth chick that hatched at the zoo on July 11. When our first ever tawny frogmouth chick hatched last year , internet users raged in debate whether it looked more like a furby, a cottonball, or a tribble, but it’s actually a nocturnal bird native to Australia and Tasmania. Seen here at five days old, the chick still sports downy feathers, but soon it will start to acquire its flight feathers and darker contour plumage that acts as camouflage, blending into the color and texture of tree bark. In the chick’s first week, keepers provided supplemental feedings to ensure good weight gain: Under its parents’ attentive care behind the scenes at the zoo, the chick is now gaining 15-20% of its body weight daily so supplemental feedings are no longer required. The parents and hatchling will remain off public exhibit to allow staff to monitor parental care and ensure regular feedings by the parents. The hatching is significa

Posted by: Kathryn Owen, Education When it comes to enjoying fresh fruits and vegetables, what could be better than being able to pluck a ripe tomato or crisp head of lettuce out of your very own garden? For Woodland Park Zoo’s gorilla troops , fresh-off-the-vine produce is just that accessible. In the winter they may be dining on evergreen elaeagnus leaves, and in the summer they may be stuffing themselves with grape leaves and tender vines. A wide variety of animals at the zoo enjoy fresh produce from the zoo’s browse program, which provides fresh leaves, stems and flowers for gorillas, red pandas, colobus monkeys, orangutans, elephants, tree kangaroos and many others. You and I use the term “browse” to mean sampling and exploring—like browsing the shelves of a bookstore in search of something appealing. But the term also refers to the plant materials eaten by browsers—that is, herbivores or plant-eaters that eat the leaves, stems and flowers right off the tree or bush instead of gra