Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by: Snow Leopard Trust, a Woodland Park Zoo Partner for Wildlife Hello, snow leopard! A remote camera detected this elusive animal in the Shamshy Wildlife Sanctuary, Kyrgyzstan. Photo by SLF Kyrgyzstan / Snow Leopard Trust / SAEPF Researchers have captured the elusive snow leopard on camera in Shamshy, Kyrgyzstan, the first evidence that a bold strategy to transform a former hunting reserve into a protected wildlife preserve is working. Through a new, innovative conservation program piloted by Seattle-based Snow Leopard Trust, Woodland Park Zoo, Snow Leopard Foundation Kyrgyzstan and the Kyrgyz Department of Hunting and Natural Resource Management, the 100 square mile area of Shamsy in Kyrgyzstan’s northern Tian Shan mountains was converted from a hunting concession to a co-managed nature reserve in 2015. Shamsy is home to ibex and seasonal populations of argali and wolves. It lies within a large snow leopard landscape, and has the potential to become a key part of the

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Editor with Gigi Allianic, Communications Team Oily Palms, Seattle Zoohackathon winners. Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo. Team Oily Palms gave a helping hand to wildlife this weekend with Seattle Zoohackathon's winning solution, a citizen science tool that empowers locals to report deforestation activity such as illegal logging and fires. This people-minded solution was the perfect embodiment of what Zoohackathon is all about: tapping into the community to bring new eyes to old problems and innovate solutions that advance the ongoing efforts of NGOs, governments, and organizations like Woodland Park Zoo committed to ending wildlife trafficking. The first event of its kind, this weekend's Zoohackathon took place simultaneously at six leading conservation technology zoos around the world: Woodland Park Zoo, San Diego Zoo, Saint Louis Zoo, Smithsonian National Zoo, London Zoo and Sydney's Taronga Zoo. The winning solutions f

Posted by: Alejandro Grajal, PhD, President and CEO Last week, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk detailed his goal to make humans a multi-planetary species. He believes, as do I and many scientists, that humans are at a crossroads. Life on Earth as we know it is headed to its sixth extinction event. He says we can stay here and face the consequences, or we can become a space-faring species. Hanging out on Mars would be a handy option when Earth gets too crowded and its resources too depleted. His vision is we should build a highway to Mars now and begin colonizing, and he wants the whole world involved. Clearly, such out-of-the-box thinking gets attention and investment. It certainly gets my attention. Not necessarily because I agree or disagree with Musk. I must admit that whether we should colonize Mars is not a question that keeps me up at night. The question that does keep me up at night is this: How can we do more to save the planet we’re already on? Rather than make humans into a mult

Posted by: Alissa Wolken, Communications Video: Flamingo chick goes for a run. The flamingo chick who needed a second chance is now in first place. Take a look at the 7-week-old chick's impressive running skills. Hatched in August, the third flamingo hatching of the year, this chick started life in a precarious situation. The egg was found unattended so zookeepers took it behind the scenes to incubate safely. Once hatched, the chick had a dedicated team of zookeepers and animal health staff ready to give it the care and attention it needed to thrive. “In less than two months it’s gone from receiving up to five feedings a day to being fully weaned. The chick now weighs a little over 2 pounds and is big enough to go on longer walks, with keepers, in safe outdoor areas off public view," said zookeeper John Samaras. Throughout the day, zookeepers hold exercise sessions with the chick to encourage it to walk and stretch to strengthen its growing legs. "When i

Posted by: Bobbi Miller, Field Conservation, Woodland Park Zoo and Kae Kawanishi, PhD, MYCAT Saving tigers is a complicated business. It’s not enough for researchers and conservationists just to know where the tigers are. Saving them requires knowing how many there are, where and how they travel, what their prey base is, how to sustain them and what the imminent threats are to their survival. From this vast database of knowledge comes one obvious fact: the tigers need to have a place to live and a way to safely move from place to place. Enter Woodland Park Zoo Wildlife Survival Fund partner Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (MYCAT) and their recent Rewilding of the Sungai Yu Reforestation project. The project is a component of the Sungai Yu Tiger Corridor Conservation Program, which is striving to return wildlife and forests to the Sungai Yu tiger corridor in Peninsular Malaysia. During her doctoral work, Kae Kawanishi, MYCAT General Manager and Head of Conservation, ide

Posted by: Ryan Driscoll, Education Western Washington is known for its amazing outdoor opportunities. This summer, participants in the ZooCrew Summer Learning Program took full advantage of those opportunities to sharpen their science skills and explore the ecosystems around the Puget Sound. From hiking Mount Rainier to working with local field biologists, students examined the different parts of the watershed while learning about how humans and animals interact with their environments. This cultural access program is about more than just exposing students to new careers and building their science skills—it is about our mission to inspire the next generation of conservation leaders. We want youth to see themselves as scientists and to understand not only that there are issues in our area, but that they can help to investigate and solve them. At the top of a watershed hiking Mount Rainier. Over two four-week sessions this summer, 18 6th and 7th grade students from Asa Merc

Posted by: Alissa Wolken, Communications Photo: Dennis Dow. Imagine coming face to face with a giraffe, waking up to a lion pride right outside your bedroom, or watching as a skilled veterinary team heals an injured rhino out in the field. Kenya’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy—one of the beneficiaries of the American Association of Zoo Keepers’ (AAZK) upcoming Bowling for Rhinos event—is home to many life-changing experiences that have strengthened the resolve of AAZK members to keep fighting for wildlife. An injured rhino gets a helping hand thanks to the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy field team. Photo: Dennis Dow. Bowling for Rhinos offers an opportunity for you to join that fight. All funds raised from the event go directly to rhino conservation in four locations: Lewa Wildlife Conservancy (LWC) in Kenya; and Ujung Kulon, Bukit Barisan Selatan, and Way Kambas National Parks in Indonesia through the International Rhino Foundation. Open to all to attend, this year’s Bowli

Posted by: Alissa Wolken, Communications Coders and technology experts from the Seattle area—along with their counterparts in five other major cities—will join the battle against international wildlife trafficking in the first ever Zoohackathon, October 6-9, 2016. Registration is now open for interested coders, designers and project managers. Organized by the U.S. Department of State and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), the Zoohackathon is a computer coding and technology intensive event that will bring together technical gurus and subject matter experts to create applications, systems, and tools to help reduce demand for trafficked wildlife products. The Zoohackathon will build upon the U.S. Department of State’s successful Fishackathons, which have introduced new technological solutions for combating illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. The inaugural Zoohackathon will include six AZA-accredited zoos in the U.S., U.K. and the Pacific with plans for expa

Posted by: Rebecca Whitham, Editor Just beyond Molbak's Butterfly Garden, this unassuming building is homebase to the zoo's butterfly conservation efforts. Photo: Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. Inside the zoo’s butterfly conservation lab, I squint at the tiny larvae that somehow seem not much larger than the period at the end of this sentence. When I ask Erin Sullivan, Woodland Park Zoo collection manager and entomologist, how big they will get when they become adult butterflies, she demonstrates by pinching the gap between her thumb and index finger. “Pretty big,” she says without irony. In the world of butterflies, size is measured in pinched fingers and adult life expectancy in mere days. In the world of butterfly conservation, however, there is nothing small or short lived about our effort to restore the threatened Oregon silverspot butterfly, a native of our beautiful Northwest. Oregon silverspot butterfly. Photo: Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo. For 15

Posted by: Alissa Wolken, Communications Woodland Park Zoo celebrated its third Chilean flamingo hatching this year on Monday, August 22, 2016. Abandoned as an egg, the chick is being cared for by a dedicated team of zookeepers and animal health staff who are hand-raising the chick behind the scenes. This flamingo chick is being reared by zookeepers until it can rejoin the flock. Photo: John Loughlin/Woodland Park Zoo. Tiny leg lifts! Photo: John Loughlin/Woodland Park Zoo. The flamingo chick is currently fed up to five times a day and is learning to follow its zookeepers as they take it on exercise walks. Once the chick is old enough to eat on its own, in about 30-45 days, it will begin to join the rest of the flock in the flamingo exhibit. Video: Flamingo chick plays follow-the-leader.  In addition to the hand-reared chick, two other chicks are currently being parent-reared in the colony. A total of 14 chicks have hatched since the exhibit opened in 2008. The

Posted by: Susan Burchardt, Zookeeper Turkey vulture Modoc at Woodland Park Zoo. Photo by Dennis Dow/WPZ. Vultures are common—found all over the world except Antarctica and Australia—and yet are frequently overlooked or misunderstood. Here in the United States we are lucky to have three species of these beautiful scavengers: the black vulture, the turkey vulture and the critically endangered California condor. Condor numbers are slowly creeping back up. Once down to 22 individuals there are now about 430 condors. The picture is a little darker in other parts of the world. Asian vulture populations are beginning to stabilize after dramatic losses in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In Africa, carcasses are being poisoned to prevent soaring vultures from alerting rangers to the presence of poachers. This with other issues has caused several species to drop to near critically endangered levels. Vultures are nature’s recyclers. Modoc takes that job quite seriously. Photo:

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