Woodland Park Zoo Woodland Park Zoo News 2016

It's very unfortunate the cub didn't make it. Sloth bears need every birth possible to end successfully. However it is very promising that they have a pair that are now proven breeders especially since the mother is so young. Hopefully it will mean plenty of successful births in the coming years.
 
The gorilla infant continues to do well and is progressing on track despite the fact Nadiri still hasn't taken to mothering. She continues to see the baby along with two other females. The zoo will be caring for her for another 2 months before deciding what to do next with her. Hopefully for the zoo if Nadiri doesn't want her they can place her with Amanda who is an experienced mom and past breeding age. The other younger females all have breeding recommendations so they might not be good options to tie up with infant rearing for 4 years.

Seattle zoo's baby gorilla begins crawling
 
snowleopard said:
The renovated Night Exhibit will open in 2018:

Woodland Park Zoo Blog: The Night Exhibit rises
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This is excellent news, and the article notes that they already have quite a lot of funding in place. Kind of surprised they haven't prioritised a replacement exhibit for the Elephants over this, but perhaps the funding arrangements prevented this.

No real species list yet though, still in development. How many exhibits did it used to have, and what species were lost from the collection following closure?
 
zooboy28 said:
This is excellent news, and the article notes that they already have quite a lot of funding in place. Kind of surprised they haven't prioritised a replacement exhibit for the Elephants over this, but perhaps the funding arrangements prevented this.

No real species list yet though, still in development. How many exhibits did it used to have, and what species were lost from the collection following closure?
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According to press releases from the time of the closure there was a total of 61 animals in the Night Exhibit. Here is a partial species list: blind cave fish, tamandua, two-toed sloth, prehensile-tailed porcupine, three-banded armadillo, douroucouli, slow loris, galago, springhaas, vampire bat, African straw-coloured bat and Australian fruit bat.

Visitors used to enter into an area with blind cave fish and a lot of interpretative signs that were placed there to slow down guests and allow eyes to adjust. Moving around a corner, there was a very large exhibit on the right-hand side of the pathway that featured several species (springhaas, tamandua, fruit bat and two-toed sloth) while the left-hand side of the darkened pathway likely had at least 6 smaller exhibits. The Night Exhibit was not very large but was definitely well done and it has been greatly missed by the Seattle public since the closure in early 2010. It was connected to the Day Exhibit (essentially a Reptile House with about 35-40 exhibits) and visitor flow took guests through the Day Exhibit first and then into the Night Exhibit. Animals still at the zoo include a single armadillo in the Day Exhibit, as well as possibly a tamandua, a sloth and some fruit bats in the Adaptations Building.
 
I'm really glad they're bringing this exhibit back although I'm still quite unhappy about how the elephant saga unfolded. Is it generally accepted that Indian rhinos are going to be the replacement for the elephants? How soon would you expect them to arrive? They had already talked about adding rhinos long before Elephant Forest came to an end.
 
GraysonDP said:
I'm really glad they're bringing this exhibit back although I'm still quite unhappy about how the elephant saga unfolded. Is it generally accepted that Indian rhinos are going to be the replacement for the elephants? How soon would you expect them to arrive? They had already talked about adding rhinos long before Elephant Forest came to an end.
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Indian Rhinos were part of the 1976 long-range Master Plan and also part of the 2004 Master Plan and yet I've never once seen a rhino at Woodland Park Zoo. On page 104 of the 2004 Master Plan there is the idea of constructing an Indian Rhino exhibit adjacent to the existing elephant exhibit (now of course empty since the last two Asian Elephants departed to Oklahoma City Zoo) but that idea never came to fruition. Indian Rhinos would be an obvious replacement for the elephants but nothing has ever been 100% confirmed by the zoo. Incidentally, nearby Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma has also tentatively decided to have Indian Rhinos in its collection once one of the remaining two Asian Elephants dies.

2004 Master Plan:

http://www.zoo.org/document.doc?id=1352
 
snowleopard said:
A trio of very interesting concepts for the former elephant area:

https://woodlandparkzoo.formstack.com/forms/exhibitfeedback
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Very interesting indeed. I gave detailed feedback :D

Concept 3 was my preference, with Indian Rhino, Deer, Anoa, Tortoise and Hornbill. I do like the idea of Langurs with Muntjac though. Looks like they are aiming for either ungulate or primate dominated displays, and given the Ornags and Siamangs further up the trail, I though ungulates would be the better choice (although Langurs would be an excellent addition to that). There was no mention of small mammals (except Mousedeer), and birds and turtles were only minimally considered, probably to be expected, however I hope they are given a bigger role in the final design. Looking forward to see this area developed!

Are there plans to link all the Tropical Asia exhibit areas together into one mage zone in the future? They are slightly disjointed at present.
 
I really liked the idea of a zoo getting visitor feedback on potential plans. It was interesting to see what they were thinking of as options. I have never been to the zoo... and honestly probably never will but I like the rhino idea as well.
 
Some changes

I went to the zoo today and noticed a couple of new things.

In the rainforest exhibit, where they used to house aracari they now have two white-faced sakis. Not sure where the toucanets went.

The Trail of Vines exhibit that housed the lion-tailed macaques now holds some very spritely Francois' langurs. I was told that the macaques are older and are off-exhibit. Are there any zoos that have a good population of the also endangered lion-tailed macaques?

Also, Yola the baby gorilla was on exhibit today, though I couldn't get a good look because of the crowds and strollers :-( But from the glimpses I caught she is very cute and very playful!

Finally, the sloth bear exhibit had plywood placed over one of the glass panels. It looked like the glass was cracked. Anybody know what happened?
 
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