Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications One-year-old lion Adia recently arrived at the zoo to join our African Savanna exhibit, thanks to the leadership of Jungle Party 2010 Chairs Nancy and Rick Alvord. Last week, the young lion underwent a full physical examination by our animal health team. Such routine physicals give us essential baseline medical information for new animals including blood work, radiographs, and dental examination. Adia, whose name means “gift” in Swahili, got a clean bill of health from her vets. The young lion weighed in at 150 pounds, around half the weight she is expected to grow into as an adult. She shows her young age in her fur as well—as a juvenile, Adia still has rosette-like spots on her fur, typical of lion cubs. Thanks to the generous contributions of Karen L. Koon, our animal health team recently acquired a digital radiography machine that we were able to use during Adia’s exam. Taking baseline x-rays of a new animal is important in order to have

Posted by: Jennifer Snell Rullman, Snow Leopard Trust, Woodland Park Zoo Partner for Wildlife This conservation update comes from the Snow Leopard Trust , a Woodland Park Zoo Partner for Wildlife working to study and conserve wild populations of the endangered snow leopard. Their field research, based in Mongolia, includes camera monitoring and GPS collaring of wild snow leopards in order to better understand the range and behavior of this elusive species. The more we know about snow leopards, the better we can protect them… As we come to the end of our 2010 field season, we are pleased to close the year with two wonderful stories. The first is about Tsagaan, who has been out of contact since March 2010! This fall, our team caught up with Tsagaan, a large adult male cat we have been following for two years. Although re-collared in March 2010, his collar never switched on and we received no GPS locations over the last eight months. Within weeks of placing this new collar in September, w

Posted by: Ric Brewer, Communications Chai (rhymes with eye ), our female Asian elephant, doesn't yet have the fame of the late Paul the World Cup-predicting octopus. But today she prognosticated the winner of the Apple Cup. Presented with two boxes of apples, one decorated with Dawg and the other in Coug-themed wrapping paper. The 31-year-old elephant used her trunk to snatch an apple from the purple and gold box, picking the winner with a firm bite. Then, as you can see in the video, promptly smashed the box with the Coug paper. Woodland Park Zoo has had its own legion of fans in the region by a mere year longer than the first Apple Cup game played in 1900. But today marks the first time an animal here has "predicted" a winner in this heated rivalry. Pat Maluy, the lead elephant keeper joked that "Since Chai has never done this before, her record of forecasting the winner is perfect. But I guess we'll know after Saturday's game if she has an pre-cognitive a

Posted by: Roxanne Murphy, Community Relations Here at Woodland Park Zoo, we develop many sizes of partnerships with all sorts of community organizations, but sometimes the sweetest of such partnerships are the simplest and directly in our neck of the woods. This is exactly what we realized when we recently got a call from Herkimer Coffee , located just a few blocks away from the zoo on Phinney Avenue. Sure, several zoo staffers and volunteers get their morning or afternoon pick-me-ups here, but Herkimer manager Chad Smith was thinking about the zoo on a deeper level. He and his family not only love the zoo as members, they’ve also spent time here and on their own learning about orangutans . They share our same strong affinity for these inspiring and intelligent primates. Chad specifically noticed that we use burlap bags in our orangutan and gorilla exhibits. In case you didn’t know, orangutans are arboreal, living in treetops, and they rarely come down from the trees. When they do, o

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Getting ready for Thanksgiving? Enjoy this clip of our Komodo dragons gulping down a turkey treat. The footage was featured nationwide on NBC's Today Show. Watch the video below or visit the Today website to view. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy The turkey treat was given to the Komodo dragons and other zoo carnivores at our annual Turkey Toss enrichment event, held last Saturday. Turkey Toss is part of the zoo’s ongoing enrichment program to help enrich the lives of the zoo’s animals, promote natural animal behavior, keep animals mentally and physically stimulated and engage zoo visitors. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Though the winter storm watch advisory caused the zoo to close early today for visitor and staff safety, the animals did quite well in the snow. They have indoor access and heated areas, but some chose to go out and explore in the snow anyway. It can be quite enriching for them! Here are some photos we took of the animals in the snow today, some a natural fit for the white-capped scenery, others a departure from the usual snowy scene: If the snow continues to impact zoo operations, we'll post updates to our website at www.zoo.org . Be safe out there, everyone! Photos by Ryan Hawk and Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications This week, we released the first of six prints for our Limited Edition campaign , this one highlighting the endangered African wild dog . With only 3,000 African wild dogs left in the wild, this is a species on the edge, surviving in scattered packs across sub-Saharan Africa, a result of habitat loss and fragmentation. What isn’t fragmented is this species way of life in the pack—their social structure is remarkable. Even the scene at a kill for these carnivores is polite and orderly, with pups eating first while the adults fend off scavengers. How do they keep the peace? They frequently use ritualized gestures of appeasement to prevent any serious infighting. Most appeasement behavior is ritualized food-begging, but other gestures are familiar to anyone who owns a pet dog, such as whining, tail-wagging, and rolling over to expose the belly. You can see some of their hunting instincts at work if you ever catch our African wild dogs enjoying a