Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Laura Lockard, Communications/Public Affairs Asian elephant Bamboo shows us how bath time is done. Video by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. From Borneo to Seattle, elephants embrace their bath time. We all know the feeling when you first step into the shower after working in the yard all day. Elephants at Woodland Park Zoo not only get an extended, luxurious shower, they also enjoy a quatro-pedi and a good exfoliation with a special elephant brush. Watoto gets a massage with a special brush. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. I recently had the pleasure of joining the elephant keepers as they brought Watoto into the shower barn. There she greeted them with a long, trunky sniff and then was ready for her bath with the   garden hose. Her giantess turned attentively as she followed her keeper’s soft commands, “Watoto right, Watoto turn, Watoto back.” All the washing while, she was inquisitively seeking that next snack. Carrots seem to be her treat of c

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Emu feathers are designed to hang loosely, which helps keep them cool but also gives them an appearance of having hair rather than the tightly barbed feathers we’re used to seeing on most birds . Photo by Mat Hayward/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Caileigh Robertson, Communications Exciting news! This week, Woodland Park Zoo took home two national conservation awards from the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA), the accrediting organization for more than 200 zoos and aquariums in North America. An Oregon spotted frog is released into Northwest habitat. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. We won top honors in the North American Conservation Award category for our collaborative Oregon Spotted Frog Reintroduction Project , along with our partners Oregon Zoo and Northwest Trek. Woodland Park Zoo and Oregon Zoo also earned the Significant Achievement Award for the Oregon Silverspot Captive Rearing Program . These awards represent the 14 th national and international honors in conservation for us from AZA. The Oregon Spotted Frog Reintroduction Project is a six-year collaborative effort among Woodland Park Zoo, Oregon Zoo, Northwest Trek and other conservation leaders in the Pacific Northw

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications A porcupine’s front teeth continue to grow throughout its life. Porcupine nibbling. Photo by Lauren LaPlante/Woodland Park Zoo That’s helpful since it spends its days constantly gnawing on hard substances, wearing down its teeth. Mmmm, tree bark.

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications We’re about to break ground on phase one of our all new tiger, sloth bear and otter exhibit complex , and that means we’re coming up on the final weekend—Sept. 15 – 16—to view sloth bears Randy and Tasha at the zoo before construction begins. Sloth bear at Woodland Park Zoo. Construction for a new exhibit complex begins Sept. 17, 2012. Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. Once construction begins the week of Sept. 17, we’ll be closing off the area where the sloth bears live now and they will remain off public view until both phases of the construction project are complete, which we anticipate will be in 2014. The new exhibit complex will transform a 60-year-old portion of the zoo into a state-of-the-art, 2-acre complex with dynamic new homes for several species of the Asian tropical forest—Asian small-clawed otters, sloth bears, tropical birds and Malayan tigers. Asian small-clawed otters. Photo courtesy of Santa Bar

Posted by: Gretchen Albrecht, Raptor Keeper It’s me, Squeaky. Photo by Gretchen Albrecht/Woodland Park Zoo. Hi, I’m Squeaky the squirrel. I work at Woodland Park Zoo’s Raptor Center as a hawk lure. It’s been a busy summer for me. I thought you might enjoy hearing about my job. 8:00 a.m. - Time to get up. I rest with two other lures, the “dummy bunny” used for the ferruginous hawk and golden eagle, and a swing lure used for the Aplomado falcon (it is supposed to look like a bird).  Obviously I am the cutest! Chillin’ with the dummy bunny and swing lure. Photo by Gretchen Albrecht/Woodland Park Zoo. Lures are an important part of training a raptor to safely free fly. The lure usually represents the raptor’s natural prey. After getting a meal or two on the lure a raptor is generally pretty keen to fly to it since the lure means food. Flying to a lure is a lot more fun than flying to a trainer’s glove so a lure is often used when a raptor has gone off cours

Posted by: Rob Goehrke, Education One of the goals of our ZooCrew education program for middle schoolers is to  connect youth to professionals  in the field in order to complement their classroom learning and pique their interest in various STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers. This summer, tablets generously donated by Washington STEM* helped us do just that. ZooCrew youth collaborate with zookeepers, giving them a positive exposure to careers in science. Photo by Jess Thomas . In August, ZooCrew partnered with a summer camp based in West Seattle, a good 30 minutes from Woodland Park Zoo. We were working on a project that connected the kids back to our animals on zoo grounds—developing enrichment devices to keep the animals stimulated and kickstart their natural instincts. A project like that needs lots of feedback from the zookeepers to make it work, but it would have been a big investment to ask zookeepers to drive out, stay for the program, and dri