Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Can you guess which zoo animal these claws belong to?  We'll give you time to think. . . . . . . Did you get it?  . . . . . . Got it? It's the sloth bear! Those sharp, 3-inch-long claws belong to the sloth bear and they are used to dig out insect mounds. After digging, sloth bears  blow away the dirt with their long, mobile lips and with a huge breath, suck up the termites like a high-powered vacuum. You’ll see these adaptations up close when we transform our sloth bears’ and tigers’ 60-year-old exhibits into state-of-the-art, naturalistic homes coming in 2014.  Help us get started on the transformation : Give Ten for Tigers today at http://bit.ly/GiveTen Thanks! (Photos by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo.)

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Can you spot the joey? Our red-necked wallaby baby is spending more time poking out of its mother's pouch, even when mom is hopping all around the exhibit like in the photo above. The infant wallaby, known as a joey in the marsupial world, still spends much of its time curled up in 3-year-old mom Kiley's pouch. As the summer progresses, it'll begin venturing out more and more, returning to mom for feedings. This is the first wallaby joey at Woodland Park Zoo, part of our Species Survival Plan (SSP) efforts in conjunction with the Association of Zoos & Aquariums. Led by experts in husbandry, nutrition, veterinary care, behavior, conservation and genetics, AZA-accredited institutions manage each species as one population in North America to maximize genetic diversity, with the goal of ensuring the long-term survival of the population and the health of individual animals. SSPs also involve a variety of ot

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Stretch with us! Archive image of Hadiah, the last Sumatran tiger cub born at Woodland Park Zoo, seen here in 2006 at 16 days old. We'll have a breeding pair of Malayan tigers in our new exhibit, which means we may have more cubs in the near future! Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. It’s GiveBIG day in King County, which means your $10 gift to our Give Ten for Tigers campaign will get stretched by the partial matching funds from the Seattle Foundation today only when you make your gift at this link .   Even if you can’t make a gift, click the share buttons to spread this to your friends and help us get the word out across the community. Together, we’ll create an awesome new exhibit for tigers and sloth bears at the zoo.  Remember, GiveBIG is today only. Any gift you make through GiveBIG will go directly to our Give Ten for Tigers campaign. Tomorrow we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming of Give

Are you tired of our worn-out, 60-year-old tiger and sloth bear exhibits? So are we! That's why we're embarking on the biggest extreme makeover here at the zoo since the 1990s to build a new, state-of-the-art, 2-acre exhibit complex for Malayan tigers , sloth bears , small-clawed otters , tropical birds and so much more! Future plans for Woodland Park Zoo's all new, naturalistic tiger exhibit complex. If you love animals, you'll love the new experience we're designing. You should see the plans ! The exhibit complex will also play a crucial role in inspiring people to help save wild tigers  whose future is in serious jeopardy. Malayan tiger. Photo by Melinda Arnold/Dickerson Park Zoo. But we can't build it without you. Literally. If you've ever done any remodeling you know it's expensive. And we only have until May 25 to raise enough money to start construction on Phase One of the exhibit complex (which will include an exhibit

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Early in the morning, the tropical rain forest usually resonates with "singing" siamangs whose call is so loud it can be heard for up to 3 miles.  How can they project so far? That hairless throat pouch blows up to act as a resonator that enhances the carrying of their call. Photo by Dennis Conner/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications We’re just a little over a week away from officially debuting two species of wild pig at the zoo on May 5 and 6 — Visayan warty pigs and African warthogs . Warthogs have moved into the zoo's African Savanna biome.  When new animals arrive at the zoo, they go through a standard 30-day quarantine. Our newly arrived 1-year-old brother and sister warthogs—who came to us from Zoo Atlanta—are wrapping up their quarantine now and have just been introduced to their exhibit space so they can begin to acclimate to their new surroundings. But a big step for them before they could enter their exhibit space in the African Savanna was to head off to the vets for a health check-up in order to be cleared from quarantine. Female warthog gets her check-up by our Animal Health team. The warthogs recently completed their quarantine exams and got clean bills of health. The two were weighed, had x-rays taken and blood drawn,

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications 4/27 UPDATE: If you are having trouble getting www.zoo.org to load, you can buy your tickets directly at this link .  BECU ZooTunes presented by Carter Subaru returns for its 29th season and another exciting line-up! The popular concerts are held outdoors on the vast, picturesque North Meadow of Woodland Park Zoo. The new season kicks off June 27:  June 27 - Leo Kottke / Jake Shimabukuro ($24)  July 3 - k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang ($38)  July 18 - Grace Potter & The Nocturnals ($22)  July 19 - Ziggy Marley ($28)  Aug 1 - Los Lobos / Steve Earle and the Dukes ($28) Aug 5 - The Johnny Clegg Band / Ladysmith Black Mambazo ($28) Aug 12 - An Evening With Melissa Etheridge ($39.50) Aug 15 & 16 - An Evening With Pink Martini ($34)   Aug 22 - Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue / Robert Randolph & the Family Band ($26)  Aug 29 - Rosanne Cash / Madeleine Peyroux ($26) BECU ZooTunes presented by Carter Subaru