Who's all cuddly? Who's all cuddly? (Photo: Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo)
If the Woodland Park Zoo wanted Seattle to go, “Awwwww!” en masse, they probably succeeded when they sent out this picture of a penguin hatchling getting the Pillsbury Doughboy treatment [UPDATE: Whoops. Old picture. In this year’s shot, a hatchling gets the Tupperware treatment]. Despite fluffy appearances, plenty of behind-the-scenes drama is involved:
The first chick hatched on April 3 to 4-year-old mother Sardinia and 9-year-old father Groucho. During the hatching of the first egg, the pair’s second egg was rejected by the parents. Staff relocated it under a pair of foster parents where it proceeded to hatch a couple of days later.
Whew! The Zoo expects four more eggs (Four more eggs! Four more eggs!) to hatch soon, between April 16 and 26.
All the chicks will grow up out of the limelight–you won’t be able to see them until sometime later this summer at the zoo’s Humboldt Penguin exhibit. All the cooing and clucking is serious zoo business, though–Humboldts are an endangered species, as you’ll hear in the video below, and the zoo is involved in a species survival plan to help boost their cute widdle numbers.
This video shows penguin chicks kicking it in their private pool, just before the age they are transferred to the public exhibit:
On Sat Feb. 11 10am-3pm, animals at Woodland Park Zoo will receive divine Valentine’s Day treats such as herbal bouquets, heart-shaped steaks, and more. Here's a red ruffed lemur indulging in a heart-shaped grapevine wreath. Photo credit Mat Hayward/Woodland Park Zoo
Spurred by the death of at least seven sea lions and one harbor seal, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is offering a ten-grand reward to anyone who provides information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for shooting the sea mammals in the head. Last year, Sea Shepherd offered a reward of $11,500 and caught the man responsible for killing twenty-two sea lions in New Zealand. As per usual, if you see something, say something: to report information on the sea lion shootings, please contact the NOAA Enforcement Hotline at 800-853-1964.
In happier sea animal news, the baby sea otter at the Seattle Aquarium is getting bigger and cuter, so be sure to check out the otter cam and vote for her name now through February 24th. And for Valentine’s Day, at noon the Aquarium will be playing matchmaker at the Octopus Blind Date, with an octopus male and octopus female and Barry White music pumped in (TWSS) to set the mood. That merely serves as a precursor for Octopus Week, which has tons of activities featuring our eight-armed friends.
And of course, the Woodland Park Zoo has a Valentine’s Day event too: all day Saturday the animals will receive special treats for the big day, from heart-shaped ice pops to herbal bouquets and heart-shaped steaks. No wonder February 11th is World Happy Day.
SQUEEEEE! Sea otter Aniak with her female pup born 1/14/12. Photo: C.J. Casson, Seattle Aquarium
It’s been a busy few weeks in zoo animal news, so let’s do a rundown. The big baby announcement came from the Seattle Aquarium on January 14th: a new sea otter pup born to second-time mother Aniak. And it took the Aquarium eleven days to determine that the now nearly five-pound pup is a girl! (The need for mother-and-pup bonding time trumps our NEED TO KNOW.)
Being a female otter pup has its advantages, as Traci Belting, the Aquarium’s curator of mammals and birds indicated that “if the pup were a male, once it grew up, it would need to be transferred, so as not to cause conflicts with the father otter, Adaa. Now we know she can stay right here with her mother, Aniak, and her grandmother, Lootas.”
The new baby otter doesn’t yet have a crazy name of her own (no doubt it’s geographically-appropriate Inuit). So let’s just call her Kitty, and leave it at that. But noooooooo…everybody has to have their say, and thus the Aquarium will announce plans to invite the public to vote on possible names in a few weeks.
So head to the Aquarium to catch the pup while she’s still fluffy. Otters typically begin to shed their fluffy pup fur at about six weeks–and by ten weeks her coat will like an adult’s. The upside of losing all that fluff? Then the pup will be able to dive, which means plenty of swimming lessons from her mama. And just in time! Otters learn to open shellfish (by biting or pounding shells together on their chests) when they’re about three months old.
An endangered Visayan Warty Pig female. Photo by Michael Durham, courtesy of the Oregon Zoo.
Meanwhile, the Woodland Park Zoo had a couple big babies of their own to announce: their 2011 attendance, which exceeded one million for the 11th consecutive year (1,094,514 visitors), and their private donations of $12.8M, the highest since the zoo began operating as a private non-profit in 2002.
And coming this May “mohawked” Visayan warty pigs from Asia and warthogs from Africa will debut at the zoo. In both cases, think a more punk, woolier version of the Wooly Pig. The zoo showcases will evoke the pigs’ endangered habitat in the Philippines, as well as that of their warthog cousins in the arid East African savanna. The zoo knows how to sell these critters: “Get ready to see some serious rooting, dusting, and wallowing.”
What’s bigger news than pigs with mohawks? The Zoo’s new penguin-feeding experience!
Here’s your chance to feed our tuxedo-clad birds! For $5, feed the zoo’s Humboldt penguins a handful of tasty fish and experience these endangered birds hand to beak. Feedings are offered through April 1, 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. daily at an enclosed area of the penguin exhibit.
Let’s face it–very few animals are smart enough to make it into college on brains alone. So, inspired by this Geico commercial, the Woodland Park Zoo is starting their youngsters on a regimen of soccer training, in hopes that they will earn athletic scholarships. According to a zoo news release, nine pre-college animals will begin training this Tuesday.
The juveniles selected for training are: 4-year-old donkey Rico; 2-year-old African lion Adia; 5-year-old snow leopard Tom; 17-year-old grizzly bears Keema and Denali; and 1-year-old wolves Doba, Shila, Aponi, and Kaya. Let’s handicap their chances.
Donkey Rico:
Probably the best shot of the bunch: We’ve already seen donkeys have success in soccer, as chronicled in the Disney documentary Gus, starring Don Knotts.
African lion Adia:
Powerful and fast, yes, but lions grow to four feet tall at best and would have difficulty competing for headers in the penalty area. Though Adia may have a local role model in the Sounders’ four-foot striker Mike Fucito.
Snow leopard Tom:
I’ll be rooting hardest for Tom, since nothing can help an endangered species like getting a college degree and moving into the 1%. A native of the Himalayas, the snow leopard is accustomed to elevation, a trait that might interest the Sounders given Saturday night’s debacle at three-quarters-mile-high Rio Tinto Stadium.
Grizzly bears Keema and Denali:
On one hand, age 17 is a little late to develop the footwork skills needed for soccer success. On the other hand, probably easier to teach the bears soccer than algebra, at this point.
Wolves Doba, Shila, Aponi, and Kaya:
This is the way to do it–start ‘em young. Just make sure they understand the rules. This baby panda playing soccer has more than three million views on YouTube, but, I mean, hello? HANDBALL! If college coaches see that, they will strike you right off their recruiting list.
Some of these words might come as a bit of a harsh reality check, but it comes from a place of love. We here at The SunBreak want all of Seattle’s youth to succeed, whatever their race, creed, religion, sexual orientation, Edward/Jacob preference, or species.
If you want to watch the animals train, here’s this Tuesday’s schedule: Donkey @ 10:15 a.m; Lion @ 10:40 a.m.; Snow leopard @ 11:00 a.m.; Grizzlies @ 11:20 a.m.; Wolves @ 11:45 a.m.
The Go Go’s came up in the same late ’70s L.A. punk/power pop scene as the Motels, X, Plimsouls and Germs. They made a name for themselves on the Sunset Strip by mining the same urban surf music that the Ramones pioneered in New York. They also drew attention because they were an all-girl band that played and wrote all their own music.
Rock and roll is a young art form, but it’s been depressingly light on women-only bands. Though the Go Go’s weren’t the first in this statistical category–that honor goes to the Runaways, who brought you the unholy duo of Joan Jett and Lita Ford–they are certainly the most successful.
The Go Go’s broke big with their first major record deal Beauty and the Beat and had a meteoric career in the early 1980s, releasing three albums and touring like hell. By all accounts, they were a bunch of hard-living, hard-smoking, and hard-sexing babes on the road. But their short heyday collapsed in 1985, under the weight of expectations and over-partying.
Lead singer Belinda Carlisle embarked on a successful solo career based on her singing talent and good looks, but faded out due to her inability to find decent songs for her fine voice. Guitarist Jane Wiedlin had a moderately successful solo career that died out when she couldn’t produce a decent voice to sing her fine songs. The rest of the band flailed about until a reunion wasn’t just desirable, but necessary.
Their modest return as a working band during the 1990s didn’t really catch fire, so they settled on the creation of a reunion album, God Bless the Go Go’s, in 2001. Billy Joe Armstrong, the mercurial lead singer of Green Day, paid the entirely proper homage by appearing on that album. Bands like Green Day and Blink 182 are the heirs of the Go Go’s music, basically the Beach Boys pumped up and played fast.
When the band took the stage at ZooTunes at Woodland Park Zoo last night, they probably didn’t have much to prove. The sold out crowd of 3,800 plus was there out of love and probably hoped to recapture a little of their youthful spirit. So it was surprising when the girls came out blasting and laid down a hard rocking set that, frankly, was something the normally staid ZooTunes concerts sorely needed.
The Go Go’s came to play.
I’d seen the band on stage at the Whiskey in the 1970s, and in Boston in 1983, with A Flock of Seagulls (that’s a combo that nicely sums up a decade). But Sunday they conceded nothing to advancing years and energetically blazed through their catalog like the world depended on it.
Watching the band, I was reminded that their original success wasn’t a fluke or a result of their position as an all-girl band. The five Go Go’s are damn fine musicians. Guitarist/keyboardist Charlotte Caffey laid down licks that Dick Dale would heartily approve of. Wiedlin provided perfect harmony and slick guitar work. Kathy Valentine held the bottom together with her strong bass lines and Carlisle reminded the crowd that she can still put a song over like few others in rock.
But the band’s secret weapon is drummer Gina Schock, who peerlessly provided the pumped-up beats and surf rolls. She hit the drums hard and with purpose and the crowd, which normally sits respectively and reflectively at ZooTunes concerts, was on its feet after just five songs.
The band was in a giddy mood, probably because they just received a star on Hollywood Boulevard a week ago. And, in a nice nod to their fans, Carlisle grabbed a mike and belted out, “What a drag it is growing old!” before the band launched into “Mother’s Little Helper,” the Rolling Stones standard.
Returning to the stage for the encore, Schock was set to introduce the band, but the ladies were frantically throwing guitar picks and set lists out to the crowd. “I guess we’ll just wait for everyone to get back on stage,” mused Schock. Kathy Valentine replied, “Hey, we’re passing out picks to young girls and telling them to form bands.”
Moving into their mid-50s, the Go Go’s are standard bearers for women in rock. They didn’t ask for that mantle. In 1978, you would have thought women would move into rock music in a huge way. Well they did and they didn’t. Thirty years on, we have precious few all-girl groups out there. There are few women bassists and drummers and rock guitarists. Lots of singers, it’s true, but few writers.
The Go Go’s know this. They know they are kings of a small field, but Sunday night they didn’t seem to care. They weren’t taking prisoners. Young girls take note.
Woodland Park Zoo's 17-year-old grizzly bear brothers Keema and Denali are back in the internet spotlight with the return of the zoo's popular Bear Cam, now streaming live via Ustream at www.zoo.org/bearcam. Credit: Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo.
It’s hard to accomplish much of anything at an office job on such a glorious summer week. So why even bother trying? Enter the Woodland Park Zoo’s Bear Cam on Ustream, starring the zoo’s seventeen-year-old grizzly bear brothers Keema and Denali.
Dedicated viewers have waited for more than a year for the return of the Bear Cam, which is now back with 24/7 live online video made possible by the zoo’s exclusive partnership with Ustream. The newly-launched Bear Cam feed provides incredible views of the spontaneous environment and can be accessed at www.zoo.org/bearcam. Viewers can also choose to join in on the active social stream and chat room with other Bear Cam fans while tuning in at http://www.ustream.tv/woodlandparkzoo, which is also available whenever connected to Ustream on mobile devices, Internet connected TVs, Google TV and Boxee.
As a special treat, this morning the bears got beehive-shaped pinatas filled with coffee grounds care of Caffé Vita, honeydew, pears, apples, grapes, and honey. On a normal day, you can fire up the Bear Cam to watch Keema and Denali forage for food, fish for trout, and explore their home in the zoo’s Northern Trail exhibit.
On the Northern Trail, the bears also have new neighbors, in the form of four-month-old porcupines, Molly and Oliver, who recently arrived at the zoo from Weickert’s Wildlife in Minnesota. (Fingers crossed on a porcupine cam with the porcupine’s natural prey, balloons.)
For bear activity, the best times to tune in to the Bear Cam are 10-11 a.m. and 2-3 p.m. PDT.
