Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications Stepping into the greenhouse at Woodland Park Zoo, I am hit with a hot, humid air that smells of fertilizer, earth and some wildly primal perfumes. In the farthest corner is a table smothered in a muddle of vines, twisting tendrils and mysterious red and pink flanked vessels. Welcome to the land of the endangered old world pitcher plants, Nepenthes .   A dangerous view for a curious insect, the vibrant red lip on this pitcher plant is both tempting and deadly. I tracked down Woodland Park Zoo gardener and pitcher plant enthusiast, Justin Schroeder, who had a lot to say about these endangered carnivores. Old world pitcher plants live in very remote areas, deep in the hillsides of tropical Asia. They prefer sunny ridges and slopes to thick jungles. Rain and high humidity are important elements of their environment as they like a permanently wet soil. Old world pitcher plants can grow epiphytically, atop other plants, trees or logs

Posted by: Laura Lockard, Communications/Public Affairs I overheard a visitor at the Humboldt penguin exhibit express concern over a “sick” penguin. I looked at the penguin, “Oh my, he is having a bad hair day for certain.” I immediately allayed her concerns by stating, “He is just blowing his coat.” I then quickly realized that only a large-breed dog lover would know what that is. I couldn’t think of the bird version word for “blowing his coat.” Wracking my brain it finally came to me. Molting! He is molting. Penguin molting is a perfectly normal, annual event during which they replace all of their feathers. Penguins have more feathers than most other birds, with about 70 per square inch. Their feathers are stiff and overlap to waterproof and insulate their body. Molting can appear patchy as they lose a large number of feathers in a short period of time throughout the body, with old feathers falling out before replacement feathers grow in, a process known as catastrophic

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications This is a conservation story about butterflies and beer. An Oregon silverspot butterfly lands on a beer bottle. It’ll all make sense by the end of the story, I promise.  Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Where to start? How about we take it back to biology class. Remember learning about generalists and specialists? Humans are the ultimate generalist—we’ll live in just about any habitat and eat just about any food. Then there are the specialists, like koalas and their eucalyptus-only diet. For specialists, survival depends on that one thing they specialize in. That one thing goes away, and they’re in big trouble. Oregon silverspot butterfly at Cascade Head in Oregon. Photo by Rachel Gray/Woodland Park Zoo. That’s what’s happening to the Oregon silverspot butterfly, a native of the Pacific Northwest and a specialist dependent on the early blue violet plant for survival. This threatened species once li

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Communications Our Chilean flamingos may be pretty in pink, but three recently hatched chicks are wonderful in white as their downy feathers haven’t yet taken on that classic blushed shade. Flamingo chicks hatch with a whitish, gray down and start to acquire their pink feathering at about 1 year of age, though it can still be mixed with gray-brown contour feathers until they are 2 to 3 years old. The chicks hatched on exhibit between August 31 and September 5 following a 29-day incubation period. To ensure a higher chance of survival, the chicks and parents have been relocated behind the scenes to a quieter off-exhibit nursery for rearing. As they get bigger and hardier, we will reintroduce them back out on exhibit and back into the flock. Photos by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo.

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications Photo by Kirsten Pisto/Woodland Park Zoo. “We have some pretty cute violaceous turaco chicks in the Savanna Aviary ”, says excited zookeeper, Norah Farnham. “We have not hatched this species in quite a while!”   Photo by Kirsten Pisto/Woodland Park Zoo. The chicks, both boys, hatched a day apart on July 31 and August 1. Even though they have fledged the nest, these two stick together and follow each other from branch to branch. Photo by Kirsten Pisto/Woodland Park Zoo. As this little chick stretches out, you can see his soft down. They are just starting to get their primary feathers and coloring. Zookeeper Katie Ahl told us she can see their beaks beginning to change color already! Photo by Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo. Here is a photo of an adult violaceous turaco. They have a really beautiful dark violet plumage with striking crimson primary flight feathers. Their orange beaks, as you can see, are also

Posted by: Monica Lake, Capital Projects Our sloth bears Randy and Tasha were out in full regalia Tuesday, sniffing, scratching, balancing on logs and slurping their favorite foods—all to greet 200+ zoo lovers and advocates who gathered to help us celebrate a major milestone:  breaking ground on the new Asian Tropical Forest exhibit complex! Assisted by sloth bear Randy, President and CEO Deborah Jensen spoke about design and animal care innovations at the Asian Tropical Forest groundbreaking ceremony Sept. 18, 2012. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Nearly 100 additional zoo fans of the smaller variety “dug in” to make way for new homes for Asian small-clawed otters, sloth bears and Malayan tigers. Kids from Orca Children’s Center, North Seattle Fives Cooperative and West Woodland Elementary School joined the ceremony. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. The kids also did a great job of overseeing the work of several leaders of the Asian Tropical Fo

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