Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Martin Ramirez, Curator Lions, tigers and jaguars eating less red meat at the zoo? Who would have thought?! But if you think about it, carnivores in the wild will catch and eat the occasional fish or fowl to supplement their diet, so why not in a zoo? All of the zoo's carnivores receive a commercially prepared diet that meets their nutritional needs. These diets consist of red meat and are fed most of the week. However, there are some benefits to eating whole chickens or turkeys once a week. The bones in uncooked fowl help keep their teeth clean and the animals welcome the variety. Chickens can be offered to the animals in interesting ways. They can be hidden in the exhibit or hung from a spot where the animal has to reach for it. By reducing the red meat our carnivores eat we're not only improving their overall health, we’re also helping the environment. Researchers have determined that 2.5 times more oil is used in the production of red meat than with chicken. For

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Woodland Park Zoo is a photographer’s paradise so take your best shot and enter it for a chance to win the cover of Woodland Park Zoo’s 2011 calendar, hitting member households this November. Photographers—amateur and professional alike—are invited to submit their best animal photograph taken at Woodland Park Zoo. To enter, upload your photo to http://www.zoo.org/calendar-contest from August 16-30. Zoo judges will select their top 10 choices and open up the final voting to the public. Voting takes place online from Sept. 7-10, when the finalist photos will be posted to the zoo’s Facebook page. There you can cast votes by clicking a photo’s “Like” button. The photo with the most “Likes” as voted on by zoo fans will win the cover shot and a prize package including a one-year zoo membership for two adults and two children, plus a $50 zoo gift card . What makes for a winning photo? We’re looking for photographs that showcase the beauty and dram

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications We’re hosting our first ever Zoo Fan Meetup on Sun., August 22 during Seattle Geek Week and we’d love to meet our blog readers in person! Come on out and meet zoo staff and other zoo fans, and spend your day getting some sweet discounts, giveaways and exclusive activities as our thanks to you for being our biggest fans. Meetup is free with zoo admission or membership. Here's what's happening that day: - Download your coupon to get $2 off admission that day - Stop by our booth in the West Plaza near penguins any time from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and enjoy: o First 20 people to stop by our booth and say the magic phrase get a special surprise gift. Stay tuned to our Facebook updates for the magic phrase! o Yummy, gourmet cookies (while they last!) o Zoo Grab Bag! Reach into our grab bag and be rewarded with either: - Free carousel ride - Free seed stick at Willawong Station - Free gira

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