Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Fred Koontz, PhD, Vice President of Field Conservation In my last blog post, you read a story about my recent trip to Malaysia , which included a visit to our Harimau Selamanya (“Tigers Forever”) conservation project area. As I wrote to you, I left feeling daunted at the sheer scale of resources needed to save the critically endangered Malayan tiger, yet hopeful about our collective power to save them, together. Malaysia's Greater Taman Negara Region spans 3 million acres, three times the size of Washington's Olympic National Park. Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo. The Good News:  Our efforts are working! Woodland Park Zoo's partnership with Panthera, the international wild cat conservancy, and Malaysian non-profit Rimba combines resources to stop the illegal killing of tigers. In just two years, rangers from Malaysia's Department of Wildlife and National Parks, with support from our team of 14 dedicated researchers have removed more

Posted by: Amy Dickman, PhD, Ruaha Carnivore Project, a Woodland Park Zoo Partner for Wildlife Lioness with cubs spotted by a remote research camera. Photo: Ruaha Carnivore Project. Lions are one of Africa’s flagship species, but their numbers have halved in the last 20 years, with around 20,000 remaining. This means there are now fewer wild lions left in Africa than rhinos. Lions have disappeared from over 90% of their original range, and now only six large populations remain. One of those is in Tanzania’s Ruaha landscape, which is estimated to hold around a tenth of the world’s remaining lions. Many lion killings in the Ruaha landscape occur for cultural reasons, where young men hunt lions in order to receive accolades, gifts and female attention from within their communities. To reduce these killings, we have been working with the Lion Guardians organization in Kenya, and adapting their model for the Ruaha landscape. The Lion Guardians approach is to select and train the

Posted by: Jim Watson, Wildlife Research Scientist, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife & Woodland Park Zoo Living Northwest conservation program Pop Quiz: Scavenger Squad Can you identify each of these typical Northwest scavengers?  Bonus points if you can name which one is the top dog (at least for a few minutes). We'll reveal the answer at the end of this story. Photo: Matt Orr. This past winter we completed the fifth year of our study to investigate the feeding behavior of golden and bald eagles at carrion using remote cameras known as camera traps. Our interest is to better understand feeding rates of eagles on carrion, which is a likely source of lead fragments that eagles ingest, eventually poisoning them.  We are working cooperatively with Dr. Matt Orr, a researcher at Oregon State University conducting similar research that emphasizes the importance of ravens in finding carrion and attracting other scavengers. Even when ravens arrive at a carca

Posted by Kirsten Pisto, Communications Last month, in celebration of the new Molbak's Butterfly Garden , we asked artists of all ages to show us their most creative designs with the Butterfly Wings coloring contest. As 569 beautiful entries rolled in, we realized that picking the winners would be a daunting task! The video above highlights just a few of the 569 entries we received. To help us narrow down the contestants, we invited the entire zoo staff to vote for their favorites. After eight hours of voting, we finally have our winners. Drum roll, please... Adults (13 years and older) Grand prize winner:  Melissa Jeffers, 21, “Butterflies in the Forest” Melissa Jeffers, "Butterflies in the Forest." Melissa will receive the grand prize: a tour of Molbak’s Butterfly Garden with entomologist and butterfly expert Erin Sullivan and a private afternoon tea with cookies for up to six people. $50 Molbak’s gift card. Runner up:  Elissa Clough, 13, “The B

Posted by: Fred W. Koontz, PhD, Vice President of Field Conservation Photos by: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo except where noted Taman Negara National Park. Each year, I travel to Malaysia to meet with colleagues working on Malayan tiger conservation. These trips are essential for good partner communications and ensuring the zoo’s field support is effectively placed. But my most recent visit in June was something quite different. This time, I traveled to Malaysia with 13 of the nation's top tiger zookeepers in tow, including those from National Zoo, Brookfield Zoo, San Francisco Zoo and Zoo Miami, to name just a few. The group included Woodland Park Zoo tiger keeper, Christine Anne, who had been eagerly  preparing for this trip for what seemed like a long time. Christine knew this was an opportunity to see tiger habitat, learn about threats to their survival, discuss conservation solutions with tiger experts and meet local people sharing land with big cats. Equ

Guest scientist post by: Marc Ancrenaz, PhD, HUTAN, a Woodland Park Zoo Partner for Wildlife Courtesy of HUTAN. Orangutans are now one step closer to extinction. Based on an assessment led by Borneo Futures, scientists from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) have officially downgraded the status of the orangutans living in Borneo to Critically Endangered , the last step before reaching the dreadful status of Extinct in the Wild. Scientists have proven that the number of orangutans will decline by about 80% between 1950 and 2025 given current development plans by the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia. These numbers are hard to fathom. To put them in perspective, an 80% decline is equivalent to losing four out of five people you know ; it is equivalent to the disappearance of a staggering six billion of the current global human population in 75 years with no new births. Actually, many populations of orangutans have already disappeared in Borne

Posted by: Bettina Woodford, PhD, Communications Alejandro Grajal, PhD, our new president and CEO, has a big goal: to make conservation for everybody. He’s convinced that Woodland Park Zoo is the best place to achieve it. Alejandro is an internationally recognized voice for the power of modern zoos. He believes they are essential to help humans embrace their biggest challenge to date: developing a new relationship with nature and all beings with whom we share the planet. To the challenge he brings deep and global expertise in conservation science, environmental education, and animal welfare advocacy. In this interview with Alejandro, we explore what brought him to the Great Pacific Northwest—via Venezuela, Florida, New York and Chicago—and his vision for Woodland Park Zoo. You began your career as a biologist in the field. How did your trajectory turn to leadership roles in zoos?  I’m a water man—I love anything in the water. I graduated with a degree in marine ecolog