The zoo has finalized plans for a new west entry, which is reportly costing $7 million, opens in 2010, and has been financed by private donations: Woodland Park Zoo Press Release The new $6 million Humboldt penguin exhibit is the next big thing at the zoo and it opens in about 5 weeks. Here is the 13-page media kit: http://www.zoo.org/pressroom/pdf_bin/penguin_exhibit.pdf
Extensive newspaper article on the new, $6.5 million penguin exhibit: Local News | Penguins prep for Woodland Park Zoo debut | Seattle Times Newspaper
The penguins have been released into their new, $6.5 million exhibit: Woodland Park Zoo Blog | Naturally Inspiring
Zoo kicks off summer with new exhibits | Ballard News-Tribune Does anyone know where the tree kangaroo will go? Is the old tree kangaroo exhibit over in Australasia still there, or did that become part of Willawong Station? I'm also curious to find out where they intend to keep the Steller's sea eagles they plan to get this year.
The last tree kangaroos that I saw in the zoo were inside the "Day and Night" building that was basically half nocturnal house and half reptiles and amphibians. There were also at one time tree kangaroos kept in the "Adaptations" building that now houses clouded leopards, komodo dragons, tamarins and fennec foxes. I too am curious about the Steller's sea eagles...
I paid a visit to the Woodland Park Zoo again today, one day after the $6.5 million Humboldt penguin exhibit opened. As to be expected the zoo has pulled off another exhibit masterpiece, as the penguin habitat is perhaps the BEST that I've ever seen. I admit that I've never been to the St. Louis Zoo, which supposedly has the #1 penguin enclosure in the U.S., but I've seen countless penguin exhibits over the past 33 years in North America and Australia. I love the fact that the enclosure in Seattle is entirely outdoors, and it is HUGE in size! Woodland Park, home to a large number of exhibit awards over the years, has a new penguin enclosure that is enormous. The total area is 17,000 sq. ft., which is quadruple the size of the award-winning jaguar enclosure that everyone always raves about. I have at least 60 photos just of the penguin enclosure that I'll upload on Tuesday, but for now I'll say that I'm hugely impressed with the zoo's accomplishment. Including two round glass windows that are mainly for kids there are EIGHT viewing windows to see the penguins underwater, and numerous opportunities to wander around the extremely large visitor area. The massive rocky background makes the area seem even larger than it already is, and there is a small boat, an anchor, a large sandy area, and a visitor pathway that winds around several rock formations and allows for quite a few unique viewing opportunities. Most of the signs are half in Spanish and half in English (Humboldts are from Peru) and the 20 birds were active and darting throughout the water, their rocky beach, and the nesting holes in the background. The one black mark against the brand new exhibit is an ugly-as-hell beige wall that separates it from the rest of the zoo. At each end of the long visitor walkway there are large gates that begin and end the journey and the wall is used to distinguish the penguins apart from other zoo exhibits. On the inside of the wall it looks terrific, with a research station, realistic looking moulds of rocks and various beach debris...and it all works brilliantly. However, looking at the exhibit from the outside the blank wall comes across as a total eyesore. Maybe there are plans to carve figures into it, or at the very least do something eyecatching, but time will tell. I thought that it could have been eliminated completely, but once inside the "penguin experience" it became an afterthought. Other zoo news: - a Matschie's tree kangaroo has been added to the Day & Night building, where there were tree kangaroos many years ago. The all-indoor enclosure previously held golden lion tamarins. - there are no more slow loris or pygmy loris in the nocturnal house, and instead are 3 different enclosures with galagos hopping all over the place. - the colobus troop is up to 5 now, and there is a male silverback gorilla expected to arrive soon. I have no idea where he is coming from.
Blackduiker Great review! I've seen the Lichtenstein Penguin exhibit in St. Louis, and now I'm curious to see Seattle's exhibit. Sounds like it could possibly knock St. Louis out of its #1 position. St. Louis has both indoor and outdoor Penguin habitats.
I can't wait to see your photos snowleopard, great to hear that woodland park have come up with another world-class exhibit.
The WPZ has also renovated an old cafe by the exit of the Tropic of Vines (practically right next to the siamangs) and the new Pacific Blue Chowder House has a more upscale, fish n' chowder style menu. There is a new patio there and they now serve full meals instead of snacks, and it just opened last week. Also, for the first time in many years the zoo's map has been completely redesigned and revamped. There is much more attention to detail, and the depictions of the animals are colorful and slightly more child-friendly. It appears that there has been a tiny bit of construction started on the new west entry, which will open in the spring of 2010. It is costing $7.5 million and will include a cafe, a giftshop, restrooms and a new visitor pathway. One of arguably the 5 best zoos in North America continues to improve!
The male silverback gorilla is from Granby Zoo and his name is Leonel. He was supposed to arrive last year, but I guess it got held back or something
The new map is posted on their website. It looks really nice. The one weird thing though... it makes it look like the giraffes are in a separate exhibit from the rest of the savannah animals.
I was definitely shocked by the radical redesign of the map, as the zoo has been fairly consistent with the graphics on its maps for ages now. Every six months or a year at most there is a new map, but it is almost always close to identical to the previous one. Also, the giraffes are rarely allowed out on the African Savanna, and in fact have crappy little paddocks that are substandard in comparison to the rest of the award-winning exhibits in Seattle. There is a giraffe barn and two quite small exercise yards where the giraffes are normally kept. There does happen to be a pair of gates that link to the feeding station, as well as the savanna. The problem is that the giraffes are not let out into the savanna with all of the other animals if it is raining, the ground is too slippery, or if it is cold. That pretty well sums up 9 months of Seattle weather! My wife has been to the zoo on at least 6 occasions at all different times of the year and has only ever seen the giraffes in their tiny yards. I am a huge fan of warm climate zoos, as places like Melbourne, Sydney, San Diego, etc, the giraffes are almost never indoors. In Seattle it is rare indeed to spot them towering over the other animals on the savanna.
Its been about ten years since the zoo last changed its map design. And back then, they really did change much to the map design. Thanks for the link!
Funnily enough I have received 2 private messages in the past couple of days asking about photos of the brand new, $6.5 million penguin exhibit. I think that there are so many hundreds of photos pouring into ZooChat that at times zoos can become overlooked and people miss photos. Anyway, for those of you that are intrigued I uploaded about 65 shots of the huge enclosure a couple of days ago.
