Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Cheyenne Mountain Zoo News

Of course. After the last litter in 2000, the pair of wolves the zoo had did not breed again and the exhibit was used for bachelor groups until about 7 years ago. Until now, none of the pairings had been successful. It is of particular success because neither parent has had pups before so their genetics are very valuable.

 

Albert the rocky mountain goat is currently quarantining after arriving from Woodland Park Zoo. He has a breeding recommendation with one of the zoo's current females. Because of high transportation costs, the Rocky Mountain Goat Foundation stepped in and helped offset the costs to bring Albert to Colorado. There are currently only 14 rocky mountain goats in AZA facilities.

Article2-May2018 | CMZoo

Another article about the Mexican wolf pups. One note, the number of pups is currently at six. One unfortunately passed a few days after the announcement. The remaining six are doing great though.

Article3-May2018 | CMZoo

A second wallaby joey was born about two months ago:

Article1-May2018 | CMZoo

Nothing of note on Making Waves construction. The exhibit has not been delayed and is still on track for an late Spring, early Summer 2019 opening. The old Mountain Outfitters building was demolished a few weeks ago and construction on the new offices for education and memberships will begin soon with a tentative Winter 2018/2019 completion.

 

Female meerkat Dusty had a litter of 4 pups on May 22nd. This is her third litter in less than 1 year.
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
The Mexican wolf pups made their first trek outside the den yesterday afternoon.
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

 

Giraffe, Muziki, has given birth to the zoo’s 200th giraffe calf.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10156635021931019

 

Giraffe baby #200 is confirmed to be a girl. She needed a little assistance from staff to stand up but is doing great now. Here’s the video of the zoo staff helping her out. Super interesting, especially if you’ve never seen it before.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10156635443861019

 

Baby boom continues. Sumatran orangutan, Sumagu, gave birth last night. This is her third offspring.

 

Baby giraffe 200 has been in an ongoing medical situation all day today. She was discovered splayed out (splits) this morning and staff have been trying to get her up and back with mom Muziki. Unfortunately this afternoon, Muziki twice knocked the baby back into a splayed position and the dificult decision to hand rear the calf for the foreseeable future has been made. All of this was live-streamed on Facebook. If you want to see, check there.

 

So due to the recent medical situation with giraffe calf 200, the zoo decided to suspend their naming contest and had the baby decide on her own name. They picked the two most popular names from the contest and devised a way for the calf to choose. They played Mamma Mia (for Mia) and Penny Lane (for Penny). Well she must be a Beetles fan and chose Penny (after Spencer Penrose, the zoo’s original founder and founder of the nearby Broadmoor hotel).

On to an update on her health, she is still separate from Muziki. She is able to walk fine by herself but staff is helping her lay down and get up to prevent injury. She is not taking to being bottle fed and is being tube fed regularly. Attempts to have her nurse from Muziki have had mixed results with most ending up with her splayed back on the ground. I may be a bit biased (maybe not, I haven’t even had a chance to go down and see her yet) but I am extremely proud of the openness the zoo is showing in this situation and it reminds me of Fiona at Cincinnati a bit. Go back 2 years and admin would never give the public this sort of access. Previously the zoo held firm on a 30 day wait period for naming animals and rarely announced births when they happened.

 

Well it basically only proves that she is not deaf

 

Baby giraffe, Penny, is doing much better and is taking bottles now regularly. There is still no clear plan to reunite her with her mom yet. They will first try and intro her to Tamu, her great-grandmother (and also oldest giraffe in N. America) who is extremely gentle and good with calves. That will probably happen within a week. The zoo has been very good about streaming news on Facebook so I recommend checking their page out if you’re interested.

Still waiting on giraffe, Lakipia’s baby who is due any day now.

Baby Sumatran orangutan is thought to be female.

Rocky Mountain goat, Albert is doing great and is now on exhibit with the zoo’s two females.

Geoffory’s marmosets are our of winter holding and are in their summer exhibit by mountain tapirs.

“Pizza with a View” is now open. My only gripe is that it has no clear theme and I forget that I’m eating in a zoo when I’m in there. Other than that, they serve beer and wine on tap and the pizza is delicious. Right underneath is a coffee shop. Entrance to that is right across from Rocky Mountain goat upper viewing.

Foundations are finally being poured for the “Making Waves” expansion and there is finally a structure to see instead of a bunch of holes in the ground.

For the past month or so, Primate World has had occasional closings for gorilla introductions (between Goma the male, and Asha and Kwisha, the females) They seem to be going smoothly so far after a few initial fights. This is great news as the zoo has not had a complete troop in nearly 3 years. Once these three are comfortable together, then the zoo’s two older females, Roxie and Juju, will be reintegrated. Roxie and Juju are currently occupying the exhibits behind the siamang viewing. If you aren’t familiar, the siamang exhibit was split in half last year with a window dividing the exhibit. Basically, you look through the siamang exhibit to see the gorillas on the other side.

 

Mexican wolf pups got their first round of vaccines and their sexes determined.the litter consists of 4 females and 2 males.

Giraffe calf Penny is still under constant care. She got radiographs on her leg and while nothing conclusive was found, vet staff thinks it’s deep muscle damage which isn’t great.

 

Update on giraffe calf Penny. An abscess was discovered in her rear right thigh. It has been drained but staff still believe there is deep muscle damage there. They added and then later removed casts from her front legs. Due to the injury in her rear leg, she was putting more pressure on her front legs so casts were added to give those front legs more support. Staff then noticed a severe drop in the amount of time she was resting and decided to take the casts off. She is still getting constant care and needs assistance laying down. She is eating very well which is a great sign. Staff are constantly updating her quality of life form so that decisions are made in Penny’s best interest.

Still no giraffe baby from Lakipia. At this point she is 2 1/2 months overdue if the date breeding occurred happened in February 2017. There was another encounter between Lakipia and bull Kahlid in June 2017 but it was believed that no breeding had occurred then. If the actual breeding happened in June, her due date would be this August. Hormone tests indicate she is indeed pregnant though.

Axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) are now on display in the My Big Backyard treehouse.

 

I've heard many good things about this facility and might visit. Is there a species list of on display species?

 

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo - Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Species List 7/5/18
Here’s a species list I made not too long ago. Not everything has a permanent exhibit but if you go to the right shows and look carefully, you’ll see a vast majority of them. It’s a medium zoo but can take you most of the day if you go to the shows and keeper chats which I highly recommend.

 

Male Amur tiger, Thimbu, arrived on July 10 from Denver Zoo. He is currently in quarantine.
Article2-July2018 | CMZoo

 

Giraffe calf, Penny, is scheduled to be transported to the Colorado State University Vetrinary School in Fort Collins, CO for a surgery to hopefully deal with a deep abscess in her right hind leg. She has shown increased white blood cell count and radiographs taken yesterday indicated that the abscess is deep enough and big enough to require surgery. Select staff will travel with her and the zoo will release an update tomorrow afternoon.

 

After a series of diagnostic tests at CSU, it was discovered that giraffe calf, Penny’s, condition was much more serious than previously thought. The abscess had spread to her abdomen and evidence of infection in her bones was discovered in 3 of her legs. There was also a dislocated hip that presented itself that was not seen in previous radiographs along with a malformed femoral head. The decision was made to humanely euthanize her today at the CSU Vet Hospital.

The zoo is closing the giraffe barn for the next 2 days so that the keepers can have privacy. The zoo is beginning the planning process for a memorial to Penny.

As an anecdote, Penny’s animal care manager described her life as having more impact in giraffe conservation awareness and captive care than any other of the 199 giraffes born at CMZ. It is very unfortunate that this outcome is the one that happened but the support from the community has been overwhelming.

As a side note, I think this brings up a good point about openness at zoos. This is how a zoo avoids controversy. The zoo got ahead of any potential controversy and allowed the narrative they wanted to come out. This is opposed to reacting to events and dealing with major social media drawbacks. Look at what happened in Cincinnati. After Harambe, the zoo had to shut down their social media because of the backlash. Then Fiona came and the zoo took the opportunity to get ahead and drive the narrative instead of reacting to it. Nobody asked why Cincinnati didn’t do something because they explained why decisions were made and were open with everything that had to do with Fiona’s care. CMZ emulated this with Penny. After her initial splay, the zoo took the initiative to document and update people with every up and down in her short life. Because of this, I do not see any potential fallout from this event.

 

Penny the baby giraffe has been euthanised aged 8 weeks old

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's newest giraffe, Penny, euthanized by veterinarians

 

A major hailstorm hit the zoo this afternoon. 400 vehicles are too damaged to drive, 14 people were treated for injuries and 2 animals (a Muscovy duck and a Cape griffin vulture) were killed.
14 people hurt, 2 animals killed by large hail at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...st-hail-hurts-8-people-kills-3-animals-at-zoo

Some news articles are reporting that 2 vultures died. Its sad to see any animal die from this, yet their is little a zoo could have done. Just glad to see that only a few people out of the thousands at the zoo were injured. The vehicle damage looks pretty horrible and is definitely going to cost a lot, yet obviously the priority is the safety of visitors/animals.

Looking through instagram their appear to be plenty of buildings with busted windows and plenty of foliage down.