Woodland Park Zoo

Woodland Park Zoo is a wildlife conservation organization and zoological garden located in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. The zoo is the recipient of over 65 awards across multiple categories. The zoo has around 900 animals from 250 species and the zoo has over 1 million visitors a year.
Occupying the western half of Woodland Park, the zoo began as a small menagerie on the estate of Guy C. Phinney, a Canadian-born lumber mill owner and real estate developer. Six years after Phinney's death, on December 28, 1899, Phinney's wife sold the 188-acre (76 ha) Woodland Park to the city for $5,000 in cash and the assumption of a $95,000 mortgage. The sum was so large that then-mayor W. D. Wood vetoed the acquisition, only to be later overruled by the city council. In 1902, the Olmsted Brothers firm of Boston was hired to design the city's parks, including Woodland Park, and the next year the collection of the private Leschi Park menagerie was moved to Phinney Ridge.
An expansion of the zoo was approved in 1968 as part of the Forward Thrust ballot measures and resulted in a master plan designed by architect George Bartholick, which included a lid over Aurora Avenue and new exhibits to the east in Woodland Park. The plan was opposed by local residents and rejected in a citywide ballot initiative in November 1974.
In 1975, David Hancocks, the then-director of the Woodland Park Zoo, redesigned the zoo's gorilla exhibit to form what became referred to as landscape immersion exhibits, in which animals would become immersed in landscapes that represented their natural habitats as closely as possible, while visitors would also be immersed in the same replicated habitat. The habitat was designed with natural plants and rockwork, with special consideration being put towards the acoustic treatment of the exhibit to make the environment soft and quiet. Initially the idea was heavily criticized, with many experts being concerned about the maintenance of vegetation and lack of visibility, as well as the temperate environment of Washington negatively affecting the soil. The idea eventually became the standard for naturalistic exhibits, inspiring many imitators and replicas worldwide.
As of the summer of 2010, the zoo featured 92 acres (37 ha) of exhibits, public spaces, parking, and playgrounds. Open to the public daily, it received 1.05 million visitors in 2006. Its collection includes:
Woodland Park Zoo is a recipient of several Best National Exhibit awards from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and ranks second after the Bronx Zoo in New York City for the number received. Woodland Park Zoo created what is generally considered the world's first immersion exhibit, a gorilla habitat, which opened in the late 1970s under the direction of zoo architect David Hancocks. Other exhibits include:
Woodland Park Zoo has been an active member of environmental and ecological conservation efforts across the U.S. Besides operating its own educational programs for school children, the park also cooperates with many of the higher education institutions in state, such as the University of Washington. On January 5, 2010, the zoo announced that due to the "difficult economy," it would be closing its Night Exhibit.
ZooTunes, a summer concert series, has been held at the zoo since 1983 and raises funds for various zoo programs and activities. For the event, the zoo's North Meadow is turned into an outdoor amphitheater that accommodates 3,700 attendees.
From 1953 to 1968, Woodland Park Zoo was home to Bobo, a western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla, the same species as the gorillas currently living at the zoo). Bobo was acquired from the Lowman family of Anacortes, Washington, who had purchased the gorilla as an infant from a hunter in Columbus, Ohio, in 1951 and had raised him in their family home in Anacortes. Bobo drew many visitors to the zoo and was one of Seattle's main attractions in the years preceding the construction of Seattle Center and the expansion of major-league professional sports into the city. His popularity is credited with helping the zoo obtain funding to build a new primate house.
Anthropologist Dawn Prince-Hughes spent many years working at Woodland Park Zoo and observing the western lowland gorillas there, which she wrote about in her book Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism.
Two lionesses named Busela (Seyla) and Nobuhle (Nabu) were transferred from the zoo to Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, Utah, to breed with the Montgomery Zoo's two male lions, Baron and Vulcan. On February 24, 2016, Nabu gave birth to two males, Brutus and Titus, and a female, Calliope. Baron fathered the three cubs.
In December 2015, a baby gorilla, Yola, was born at the zoo. She is the first child of Nadiri who was also born there.
On June 20, 2017, the baby giraffe Lulu was born, standing 5'7" and weighing 149 lbs. The daughter of Tufani and Dave, she is a mixture of the reticulated and South African giraffe subspecies. Her naming rights were auctioned off at the zoo's Jungle Safari Party fundraiser. A male snow leopard cub was also born at the zoo that summer; he was given the name of Aibeck, meaning "long life" in Kyrgyz.
In July and October 2022 two brown bear cubs, Juniper and Fern, were transferred to the zoo from Alaska and Montana respectively. Both bears are female and were orphaned as young cubs.
The Woodland Park Zoo works in collaboration with the Oregon Zoo, government agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and conservation organizations on recovery projects for many threatened and endangered species, such as the Oregon silverspot butterfly, and western pond turtle.