Woodland Park Zoo Blog

For what do we give thanks during the holidays at Woodland Park Zoo? FOOD : We love a filling meal and our animals do too! Did you know that the zoo goes through more than 15,600 pounds of food each year to feed over 300 species of animals? FAMILY : You are our family, along with more than 1,000 animals, 1,000 volunteers, 3,000 donors, 43,000 member households and 400 staff.   GIVING : Giving feels good, as does giving thanks.    Will you join us in sharing these simple ideals this Giving Tuesday by helping us raise $30,000 today? If you make a gift today , a generous group of donors will match it dollar for dollar (up to $15,000), doubling your impact! We give thanks for every contribution, of any size. Your gift will help provide vitamin-packed meals and tasty treats this winter! As but a few examples: $15 could feed red panda Steller biscuits, bamboo and fruit $25 could feed gray wolf Doba whole chicken and rabbit $40 could feed snow leopard Helen chicke

Posted by: Caileigh Robertson, Communications Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Three weeks ago on November 7, our pair of great argus welcomed a healthy chick. The baby bird tipped the scales at 48 grams, just a little heavier than a golf ball, and has steadily gained weight since. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. To increase the chick’s chance of survival, keepers are hand rearing it behind the scenes in the comforts of a warm, secure den. Soft, feathery items—like the feather duster pictured below—are added to the den to comfort the young pheasant and to familiarize it with the feeling of family. A feather duster is used to provide comfort to the hand-raised chick. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. The argus chick is a symbol of hope for this vulnerable species native to Southeast Asia. As part of the Species Survival Plan (SSP), Woodland Park Zoo’s successful argus breeding program helps ensure a healthy, self-sustaining population that’s genetic

Posted by: Peter Miller, Zookeeper with Katrina Lindahl, Horticulturist Woodland Park Zoo provides a home for the critically endangered—animals and plants alike. After local authorities confiscated a number of endangered succulent plants, seized from a collector who illegally dug them up from their native habitats, we are proud to step in and provide the plants with a second chance to thrive. Here, keepers and horticulturists work closely together all the time to choose plants for exhibits and zoo grounds. We look at factors like overlapping native ranges of plants and animals, connections in their natural history, and potential toxicity of plants to animals when making choices.  Using these parameters, we have found appropriate new homes for the plants, all of which are listed as protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). These wonderful specimens have been incorporated into geographically-appropriate animal exhibits within the zoo’s Day

Posted by: Kirsten Pisto, Communications Photos by: Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo Thanksgiving is a time for tradition—too much turkey, small talk with long-lost relatives, football jitters and holiday traffic jams—but we’re here to help you break convention and show your wild side. Take a cue from the animals and enjoy Thanksgiving like a beast! 1. Forage together In the wild, meerkats take turns foraging for small lizards, insects, birds and fruit while one or two of them act as a sentry and keep a lookout for predators. At the zoo, our meerkat mob dines on a variety of kibble, vegetables, crickets, mealworms, mice, fish and a carnivore meat diet. Tip from the meerkats: Holiday grocery shopping can be grueling, but not when you’ve got accomplices! Plan to visit the market with your own mob (a few close friends or family members). Divide your list and conquer the masses together. Then celebrate with a cricket pie. Hey, it’s protein! 2. Hoard your cache

Posted by: Fred Koontz, PhD, VP Field Conservation Nowhere can we make a greater difference for endangered tigers than to work directly in the field. Just one hundred years ago, more than 100,000 wild tigers roamed the grasslands and forests of Asia. Now, less than 3,200 survive. Behind this sharp decline are decades of habitat loss and illegal killing. Today, conservation scientists worry about an accelerating international demand for tiger parts, such as skin for rugs and bone for Chinese medicine. Poachers are pushing this iconic big cat to the brink of extinction. We’re working hard to change that! As you learned in last summer’s field report , Panthera and Woodland Park Zoo established a 10-year, $1 million partnership to assist our Malaysian colleagues’ efforts to save tigers from extinction. The Malayan tiger ( Panthera tigris jacksoni ) is a tiger subspecies found only on the Malay Peninsula. In the 1950s, there were an estimated 3,000 tigers in Peninsular Malaysia; possib

Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. We have news we want to share: today, Woodland Park Zoo announced we will phase out our on-site elephant program and begin plans to relocate together our Asian elephants, Bamboo and Chai, to another Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) accredited institution. Above all, we are committed to putting the welfare of Bamboo and Chai first. You may recall the Elephant Task Force—a panel of local community representatives and internationally-distinguished scientists and animal care professionals—conducted a critical and thorough external review of the zoo’s elephant program in 2013. Following that, we announced earlier this year a strategic direction to strengthen our Asian elephant program, which included an effort to expand the herd to enhance the social welfare of the animals. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. After several months of working to implement the recommendations of the Elephant Task Force, we have found that adding

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Editor We’re localphiles in the Pacific Northwest—we like our local food, local brews and local music. At Woodland Park Zoo, we’re working hard to get that sentiment extended to our local wildlife. And now, everything we’re learning from our work with native frogs and our Northwest communities, we’re taking with us all the way across the globe to support conservation efforts in Madagascar. There, “local” takes on a deeper meaning—of Madagascar’s 292 known frog species, all but one exists nowhere else on the planet. Alarmingly, nearly one quarter of these endemic frog species are threatened with extinction. The time for action is now. The critically endangered golden mantella is found only in Madagascar. Photo by John Mather via Wikimedia. The zoo’s Amphibians of Andasibe  project—a Wildlife Survival Fund conservation project—is directly addressing the rapid loss of local amphibians in Madagascar through the support of Association Mitsinjo, a c