Woodland Park Zoo Blog

Posted by Alejandro Grajal, PhD, President and CEO When will we address climate change? Will it be when salmon can no longer spawn in Washington waters? Will we do something to curb carbon pollution once the orca has gone extinct? Or will we do nothing as wild species disappear one by one throughout the Pacific Northwest and the world? This November, Washington state must vote to protect wildlife for generations. If passed, Initiative 1631 would be the first Carbon Fee enacted by popular vote in the world. Woodland Park Zoo fully endorses Initiative 1631 because the health of the Puget Sound region, its people, and wildlife are impacted by climate change.   Initiative 1631 brings together a wide and deep coalition of citizens from agriculture, manufacturing, business, labor, Tribes, communities of color, environmentalists, and faith communities – Initiative 1631 is truly a citizen’s initiative. Democracy starts with those who participate in it. The broad and diverse coalitio

Written by Stephanie Payne-Jacobs, gorilla keeper Note from the Editor: We told you earlier about Kwame , a ninteen-year-old male western lowland gorilla who came to Woodland Park Zoo from Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. just last month. That story picks up here in the words of Stephanie Payne-Jacobs, one of our dedicated gorilla keepers. She reminds us of why Kwame was chosen to be the new silverback for a group of our females and then takes us through their first days of forming a family.  Kwame, pictured at his former home, Smithsonian's National Zoo/Photo: Skip Brown Beginnings Our search for a new silverback, the adult male leader of a gorilla family, began just weeks after Leo’s passing in March 2018. While still processing the loss of sweet Leo, we knew we had to begin the search in order to bring a sense of normality back to the lives of the females Leo had left behind. These females, 22-year-old Nadiri, 17-year-old Akenji, Uzumma, who is

Posted by Daphne Matter, ZooCorps Intern Editor's note: This post was written by our lovely ZooCorps Communications Intern, Daphen Matter. Daphne is a high school student who spent the majority of her summer with the social media and communications team at Woodland Park Zoo. We were very lucky to get to know Daphne and all of our outstanding 2018 ZooCorps interns. Thanks to this crew of amazing teens, our summer was very productive and educational, for us and them! ZooCorps is Woodland Park Zoo’s teen volunteer program that gives students the chance to connect with animals, conservation topics, and the public. Teens build leadership skills by engaging with zoo guests, participating in citizen science opportunities, developing useful job skills, and increasing their knowledge of animals and their habitats through the ZooCorps program. After a competitive process of applications and interviews, 17 of these ZooCorps volunteers were selected for the ZooCorps summer inter

Posted by Elizabeth Bacher, Communications Indian Flying Foxes. How can you not love those foxy faces? Photo: Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo Every living creature has an important role to play in the ecosystem—a special niche that they evolved to fill. Some are very misunderstood despite the good they do, and this can lead to misconceptions that make some people fearful of nature’s most valuable players. Examples include spiders that help control insect populations and snakes that do the same for rodents. We’d like to introduce you to another often misunderstood creature—one that calls Woodland Park Zoo, home. Meet the Indian flying fox ( Pteropus giganteus )—also called the giant fruit bat. Hangin' around. Photo: Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo There are more than 1,000 different species of bats found throughout the world and the Indian flying fox—which is so named for its fox-like appearance—is one of the largest. There can be some color variation, but most of these bats ar

Children pass a rhino mural on the way to class. It’s morning and class has not yet begun. The Raghab Bill middle school students in the Manas community of Assam, India gather in the courtyard. Their chatter rivals the mynahs in nearby trees. An educator emerges from a classroom with a scroll-like poster in his hand. It contains the words that start every schoolchild’s day in Manas. With little direction, the murmurs recede and the children form neat rows, arms’ distance apart. A small group of students heads to the front of the assembly, commanding the scroll and the audience. After the traditional recital of national and provincial anthems, these student leaders beckon (translated): “Come, let’s take an oath for conservation!” “We, the people of the fringe villages of Manas National Park always feel proud,” the oath begins. One of the student leaders calls out the words, while the rows of children echo the pledge back, line by line. “We shall assist Manas to be the b

We are ADVOCATES and DEFENDERS. We are CHAMPIONS and FRIENDS. We are SCIENTISTS and RESEARCHERS and so much more. We are the Association of Zoos & Aquariums: 230-strong accredited member institutions who go to work every day to ensure the conservation of our precious wildlife in their home and in our care. Video: We Are AZA: Join Us! This September, Woodland Park Zoo and Seattle Aquarium will co-host the annual Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) conference. Nearly 2,500 staff from accredited organizations across the nation will gather in Seattle to learn from, challenge and inspire each other to shape the future of community-driven conservation. We’re in it to save species, but we can’t do it alone. The greatest strength of accredited zoos and aquariums is the massive reach and collective impact we have with your support. As thousands of animal keepers, conservationists, educators, executives, horticulturists, and other zoo and aquarium staff arrive in Se

Posted by Stephanie Payne-Jacobs, gorilla keeper 39-year-old Vip, named for being a Very Important Primate, is back home in his exhibit after a long recovery. Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo After a year of challenges and changes in the gorilla unit, we have much to celebrate this month. The first is the return of 39-year-old male, Vip, to the East gorilla exhibit, along with 33-year-old female, Jumoke. Vip, who is the father of seven daughters, including our own 17-year-old Akenji, 10-year-old Uzumma and nearly 3-year-old Yola, has been off view for more than a year now—since June of 2017. That’s when he underwent a lifesaving surgery due to an infection within a long-established umbilical hernia. Vip was born with this hernia in 1979, and it had remained stable since he came to Woodland Park Zoo in 1996. Vip underwent lifesaving surgery in 2017. Photo: Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo In the summer of 2017, his care team noticed a subtle change in t

Inside the watchtower, Mr. Nath pulls on his boots, slings a rifle over his shoulder, straightens out his uniform shirt, and heads for the stairs. He’s one of eight forest guards stationed at Kuri Beel anti-poaching camp inside Manas National Park, Assam, India and he is off on a mission this morning. It’s time to patrol. Video | Rhino Lookout: The First Line of Defense Mr. Nath joins a crew of forest guards setting off from the watchtower as they fan out into the surrounding grasslands. Their long sleeves and pants defend them against blades of grass that tear at bare skin. But these tall grasses potentially conceal a much greater danger still—poachers. Mr. Nath is a forest guard in India's Manas National Park. On foot and sometimes on elephant back, forest guards patrol day and night in search of signs of intruders. They look for evidence of human activity—a breached fence, footprints, discarded litter from an illegal poacher encampment. Their morning patro

These male mountain goat kids whose mothers could not be found will have new homes at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park, Woodland Park Zoo and other zoos. Photo courtesy of Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. As state and federal agencies move non-native mountain goats from Olympic National Park to the northern Cascade Mountains, Woodland Park Zoo is partnering with Northwest Trek and Oregon Zoo to provide permanent homes to goat kids without known mothers. “Our plan is to translocate nanny-kid pairs when possible,” said Rich Harris, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife statewide mountain goat manager. “But when young goats cannot be paired up with their mothers, experience from other mountain goat translocation projects is that their survival rates are low.” Northwest Trek Wildlife Park veterinarian Dr. Allison Case joined a team of state and federal veterinarians at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park this week to examine the mountain goats, conduct physical exams and pro

In India’s Manas National Park, the greater one-horned rhino population was once poached to extinction. But now rhinos are getting a second chance there. So are the people of Manas.  This is the community leading the cause: to look out for rhinos. Video | Rhino Lookout: A Second Chance for Rhinos. “Poachers target the rhino because of its horn. Horn earns a lot of money in the international market,” explains Bibhab Talukdar, Asia Coordinator of the International Rhino Foundation , Woodland Park Zoo’s rhino conservation partner in India. Rhino horn is illegally traded mainly for use in traditional medicines, though it has no medicinal value. It is made of keratin. So are toenails. The rhino’s horn can grow between 8 and 25 inches. “In the late 1980s, early 1990s, there used to be about 80 rhinos in Manas,” according to Bibhab. “But then, due to socio-political unrest, we lost the rhino population. The poachers took advantage of the situation because