Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications With five chicks hatched in April, we were thrilled with the breeding success of our endangered Humboldt penguin colony in just the first year of their new exhibit. Well, now there’s even more to cheer. Two more penguins just hatched at the start of August! The keepers regularly weigh the chicks to ensure they are achieving acceptable weight gains. At the weigh-in today, the 12-day-old chick came in at just over 1 lb and the 9-day-old chick at 0.6 lb. They looked healthy and it seems their parents, 18-year-old mother Cujo and 20-year-old father Oedipus, are properly caring for them in their off-exhibit nesting burrow. The parents are among the oldest penguins in the zoo’s colony and also the most genetically valued breeding pair at the zoo. As part of our work in the Species Survival Plan for the endangered Humboldt penguins, ensuring such genetic diversity is critical to the stability of the population. The two chicks will stay under the car

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications The endangered snow leopard is elusive and hard to study in the wild. So researchers with the Snow Leopard Trust , a Woodland Park Zoo conservation partner , are testing with us a new method of luring these felines to research sites—Calvin Klein Obsession for Men. Today, we tested the appeal of the cologne on our 1-year-old cubs Gobi and Batu, and their mom Helen. We installed a camera in the snow leopard exhibit and sprayed the cologne around the area of the camera in hopes of capturing stop-action images and measuring the reaction of the cats to the lavender, spice and woody elements of the cologne. The results? Well, we wouldn’t quite call it an obsession, but the cats are definitely interested in Obsession. The cologne proved to be a strong attractant…eventually. It just took the cats several minutes before they caught the scent and became interested in it, rubbing up to the areas where the scent was splashed. The novelty of the camera in

Posted by: Jim Bennett, Marketing His ultimate vision is to construct a semi-closed system aquaponic operation behind the zoo’s Rain Forest Food Pavilion, raising trout and cycling the waste to grow herbs and salad greens. The herbs would be used in Lancer Catering’s food service operations; the trout as treats for the zoo’s penguins. And no packaging or shipping would be needed to get the food to market. Far fetched? I talked to executive chef Brandon Bretz and general manager Maureen Gulley of Lancer Catering, Woodland Park Zoo’s food concession partner, about how they help the zoo source food locally to minimize their carbon footprint . While aquaponics is an amazing vision worth exploring for the future, what Lancer does right now is remarkable in its own right. Fish served at the zoo’s Pacific Blue Chowder House is sourced locally from Ballard Seafood using updated guidelines from Seafood Watch . Produce is also brought in from local growers via Charlie’s Produce. Bretz doesn’t j

Posted by: Andrea Barber, Education If you plan on coming to the zoo this summer, you may see me pushing a cart filled with a colorful array of plastic fruits and vegetables. The cart is taken on a journey nearly every day this summer to different locations around the zoo. This special cart is our Animal Farmer’s Market, the scene for the summer education program, “Shop like an Animal.” Grab a basket and one of our summer program presenters will show you how to shop. There are 5 different animals from the zoo that you can shop for: a tiger, gorilla, meerkat, brown bear or giraffe. Each animal has different dietary needs in order to be healthy, and a shopping list shows you the quantity and types of food these animals really eat in one day. Depending on the animal you pick, you are assigned a budget with a certain amount of “Carbon Bucks” with which to shop. There are a variety of fruits, vegetables, meats and treats in our Animal Farmer’s Market. Each food is assigned a Carbon Buck am

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!