Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Five Humboldt penguin chicks hatched this past February and took their first steps out into their exhibit on Monday morning. The chicks, who practiced swimming behind the scenes in a secure pool room before their debut, took to the water quickly and have been exploring all around their exhibit. The colony is adjusting well to the new additions, which are significant hatchings for the penguin Species Survival Plan . Humboldt penguins are an endangered species and here at the zoo these birds are important conservation ambassadors to teach visitors about the impacts humans have on penguins in their range countries. You can tell the chicks apart from the adults by looking for their lighter, more grayish plumage. Look for them during your next visit! Photos by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Video by Erika Schultz, courtesy Seattle Times.

Posted by: Gigi Allianic, Communications Join one of Woodland Park Zoo’s Partners for Wildlife , Chris Morgan of the Grizzly Bear Outreach Project-GBOP , as he takes us on a motorcycle odyssey and gets up close and personal with the bears of Alaska in the PBS Nature special Bears of the Last Frontier . The special three-part series premieres on three consecutive Sundays, beginning May 8, 2011 at 8 p.m. on KCTS 9 (check PBS Nature for other local listings). Watch the full episode . See more Nature. The program spotlights adventurer and bear ecologist Chris Morgan on a year-long, 3,000-mile exploration into bear country across the length of five dramatically diverse Alaskan ecosystems: coastal, urban, mountain, tundra and pack ice. You’ll have a chance to meet Chris when he joins us for the zoo’s annual Bear Affair & Big Howl for Wolves on Saturday, June 4. The awareness event will highlight a couple of presentations by Chris as our grizzly bears tear through a mock-up

Posted by: Helen Shewman, Collection Manager Kelang the Malayan tapir has plenty of likes: - She likes to wander around in her exhibit eating leaves from the plants and trees - She likes to eat watermelon, apples, yams, carrots, and especially bananas and blueberries - She likes to nap in the afternoon after she has had her snack - She likes to swim in her pool But now one of her likes is helping to protect her wild counterparts. That’s because Kelang also likes to paint, and her painting is being used to raise funds for the Tapirs Supporting Tapirs project, part of the Tapir Specialist Group’s efforts to study, protect and raise awareness for tapir conservation. Tapir Specialist Group is one of more than 35 conservation programs in 50 countries worldwide that Woodland Park Zoo supports. Painting is a favorite enrichment activity for Kelang. She naturally tends to manipulate objects with her nose, so when she was given paint, she right away started playing with it, dippi

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Our limited-engagement “ Dinosaurs. Real Close. ” exhibit opens this weekend! We’d like to introduce you to the cast of characters you will encounter when you step back through time for a Mesozoic meetup with friends and family in the new exhibit. Brachiosaurus was one of the tallest and largest dinosaurs at about 42-feet tall and 100-feet long. This late Jurassic vegetarian weighed in at 50 tons, which is equivalent to around 20 African elephants! If the Brachiosaurus sounds a bit gassy when you encounter it in the exhibit, consider how much food it must have had to eat every day to keep up its size—which also explains why fossil evidence suggests its poop could weigh more than a small car! The crested Dilophosaurus looked fierce, but scientists tell us they likely appeared scarier than their bite. Dilophosaurus teeth and jaws were too weak to bring down or hold large prey. More likely their sharp claws and opposable thumbs would

Posted by: Jim Watson, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Woodland Park Zoo Partner for Wildlife Raptor Ecology of the Shrub-Steppe , a Woodland Park Zoo Partner for Wildlife , is a project of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to identify, track and study native raptors and their conservation threats. This is an update from the field... The 2011 field season for Raptor Ecology of the Shrub-Steppe is just beginning, but it is a good time to reflect on the past season and the fresh outlook a new spring will bring. Many raptors will be returning to their nests after a long-winter, rejuvenated and prepared to start the nesting cycle again. Sadly, some raptors won’t return to their nests this spring as they may have in previous years, not having survived the challenges created by humans and natural hazards in their environments. I’d like to relate a short story that honors the contribution of a particular ferruginous hawk to our research and illustrates how dif

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Three-month-old ocelot kitten Evita took her first steps out into her Tropical Rain Forest exhibit yesterday morning. Evita has been bonding with mother Bella in a behind-the-scenes area since her birth in January. Yesterday marked the first time the kitten was given access to her full exhibit. Her entry into the exhibit was tentative. She would climb the ramp that connects her behind-the-scenes space with the enclosure, poke her head into the exhibit and look around, but then retreat to her den behind-the-scenes. After a few of those false starts, curiosity took hold and Evita eventually followed the calls of her mom and she entered the exhibit space. Evita stayed close to her mom the whole time as she explored this new place filled with plants and dirt and mist from above. Evita spent most of her first hour looking around, taking in her new surroundings. This first day of introductions to the exhibit went well, but Evita is not yet full-tim

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Take a sip for a cause. Pick up a bag of the all new Zoo Special Reserve coffee at any Seattle Caffé Vita store and your daily cup of home-brewed joe will support Woodland Park Zoo and our work in animal care , conservation and education . That’s because for every bag of Zoo Special Reserve purchased at Caffé Vita, $1 will be donated to Woodland Park Zoo! The Zoo Special Reserve coffee is well-balanced with aromas of cocoa and hazelnuts. It has a smooth, clean and sweet flavor. But more than being good to drink, it’s also good to the planet. The eco-friendly coffee originates from a farm in the Santa Rosa district of Guatemala and is shade-grown, organic and Rainforest Alliance-certified. The farmers who grow this coffee promote biodiversity by setting aside over forty percent of their land as a nature reserve, which protects the habitats of native tropical animals and birds such as gray foxes, armadillos, anteaters, parrots and butte