Results tagged “nationalzoo”

Another sad death to report at the Smithsonian's National Zoo. Merlin, the Zoo's oldest male sloth bear, died this morning after a 48-hour illness, according to a news release. He was 28 years old.

On Monday morning, Nov. 2, he underwent a routine physical examination. Although the examination went well, his anesthetic recovery was prolonged, and he had not returned to normal by the afternoon. While under observation, veterinarians noticed that he had vomited some blood-tinged fluid.

Continue reading "National Zoo's Elderly Sloth Bear Dies"

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo on Friday announced the recent deaths of two scimitar-horned oryx. One female died at the main Zoo campus on Oct. 24, while a male passed away on Oct. 14 at the Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal.

     

It's been at least a couple months since we had any new baby animals to coo over at the National Zoo, but the wait is now over! The Zoo recently posted these photos to its Flickr feed of its new dama gazelle calf. The baby gazelle, a girl, was born on Friday to proud parents Adara and Rajih.

The National Zoo announced way back in April that "Happy," its 28-year-old Nile hippopotamus, would be leaving this year and moving to the Milwaukee County Zoo in Wisconsin. Well this morning we received word that Happy sneaked off in the dead of night on Monday and is already in Wisconsin, arriving at about 3 a.m. this morning. Did we mean so little to you, Happy, that you had to run away like this? Not even a fare thee well?

The baby animal cup continues to runneth over at the Smithsonian's National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Va., as they announced today the July 16 birth of a female tufted deer fawn - the fourth species to give birth at the Zoo within the last week. Zookeepers have already started referring to this summer's explosion of births as a "baby boom" of endangered species.

This new video from the National Zoo is edited without any real narrative in mind, but it sure does feature a lot of cute baby animals! Take a look for your first glimpse of the Zoo's new baby red panda, along with video images of the newest clouded leopard cub and the Przewalski’s horse foal.

In our frenzy to celebrate the birth of another fuzzy-wuzzy clouded leopard cub, we failed to report that two other baby animals were also born at the National Zoo in the last few days.

    

What is in the water at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s Conservation & Research Center in Front Royal, Va.? Today the Zoo announced that another endangered clouded leopard cub - yes, that's in addition to the two that were born there in March - was born on Friday.

The National Zoo once again rolled out the fanfare for superstar giant panda Tai Shan this morning, as D.C.'s favorite ball of fur (and stick of butter) turned 4. Now a teenager in "bear years," the panda dug into a three-tiered, frozen "cake" made out of water, beet juice, bamboo and fruit that was prepared by Zoo staff. Crowds of onlookers were on hand early this morning to watch the panda dig in to his treat and wish him a happy birthday.

Think your kids are awesome? Think awesome? Talk to the white-naped crane that was just born at the Smithsonian National Zoo. As We Love DC notes, the Zoo is calling this little chickee "the most genetically important hatchling in the North American White-Naped Crane Species Survival Program." Boo-ya. An endangered species now, owing to the destruction of wetlands in northeast China -- this bird's native habitat -- the birth of a female white-naped crane in captivity is a major boon to efforts to keep this animal's gene pool strong and diverse.

This isn't exactly happening in the D.C. area, but we were so interested to see these incredible wild animal images pop up on the National Zoo's Flickr stream today, we wanted to share them. The Smithsonian's Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity Program has been around since 1986, traveling around the world working with governments and organizations to, among other things, "provide scientific information and build in-country capacity to foster the sustainable use of natural resources."

It's been awhile, thankfully, since the National Zoo had to answer questions about mysterious animal deaths. Unfortunately, it seems that 11 of the zoo's 18 stingrays and two arowana fish died over the holiday weekend, the Post reports. After they were found Monday morning, immediate testing of the water revealed that levels of dissolved oxygen were too low in the Amazonia exhibit's aquarium. The levels were fixed and the remaining stingrays are doing fine.

Man, the Washington Post really knows how to twist the knife while the wound is still fresh. Just a day after we all learned that the National Zoo's female adult panda, Mei Xiang, wasn't pregnant after all, Postie Michael E. Ruane files a story reminding us that Tai Shan, our beloved stick o' butter who's now all grown up, will eventually be sent back to China. Oh, and that day could come sooner than you think. Thanks, man. You also had something to tell us about Santa Claus, right?

Oh, Mei Xiang, you absolute heartbreaker. Staff at Smithsonian's National Zoo confirmed late yesterday their adult female giant panda is in fact not pregnant, and was instead experiencing another one of her pseudopregnancies. This also happened last summer. And the summer before that.

The Post offered up a panda pregnancy update this morning that contained nary a scrap of news. Not that we can blame Michael Ruane for teasing us with vague reports that Mei Xiang has refused to allow zookeepers to perform an ultrasound on her of late. (She did the same thing when she was pregnant with Tai Shan! But that doesn't necessarily mean anything!). Panda Fever is practically a religion around these parts, and with young Tai Shan now almost fully grown, D.C. is starting to get desperate for a brand new bundle of joy. It's been nearly three years of false pregnancies for Mei Xiang in the interim (not to mention the 4+ years before her only successful pregnancy), and we should know either way in the next couple of days whether the latest attempt at artificial insemination has worked. Either a new little stick o' butter will shoot out of Mei's uterus, or we'll have to settle for just another false alarm. In the meantime, the zoo's Panda House remains closed until further notice.

Could the National Zoo be taking some cues from WMATA with this low-budget comedy promo video?

Nbcwashington.com alerts us to the fact that Tai Shan, D.C.'s favorite panda son, has to get a colonoscopy today at the National Zoo. Apparently the 'stick has a little case of colitis, which must be horribly embarrassing for him when it acts up while he's entertaining his many fans. Any DCist readers with colonoscopy experience care to offer some pearls of wisdom to the furball? All we can think is to suggest relaxing, lying back and thinking of England, but that doesn't seem quite right.

          

It's a double dose of adorable today from the National Zoo. As good DCist readers, you know that we've had two batches of baby animals to coo at lately: the giant anteater pup who has a thingee, and the pair of clouded leopard cubs (also with thingees). Today we've learned, via the Zoo's Flickr stream, that our anteater pal has been named. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Cyrano. He's gaining a pound a week, nursing and hanging out on his mother's back all day.

He kind of looked like a boy from day one, didn't he? The National Zoo confirms that the baby giant anteater born on March 12 is in fact a male. He's pictured clutching his mother's back, where he is still hanging out, despite the fact that he's eclipsed 5 lbs. in his single month of life. So what are we going to name this big boy? Your options include Cyrano, Pablo, Armando, and Hector; voting extends to April 28. Other entries may be registered here in comments.

   

Gaaah, the National Zoo is just killing us with this latest round of photos of their new clouded leopard cubs. Today the Zoo announced that both of the cubs are boys, a fact veterinarians weren't able to establish right away. The cubs, who sadly won't be on display at the Zoo, were born two weeks ago at the Zoo’s Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Va.

Two clouded leopard cubs were born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s Conservation & Research Center in Front Royal, Va. today, taking an immediate, commanding lead in the baby animal birth cute-off that's been going on for the past couple of months (see the elephant shrew saga, the giant anteater and the close second for Top Cute, the baby gorilla, for the entire story).

   

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo today announced the birth of nature's most ridiculous looking animal, a giant anteater born Thursday, March 12. The birth marks only the second giant anteater ever to be born in the history of the Zoo. The Zoo doesn't know if it's a girl or a boy yet, and may not for some time until they can get a closer look.

Though the National Zoo had expected and prepared for a second black and rufous giant elephant-shrew birth in as many weeks, staff grew concerned when the giant elephant-shrew appeared outside its nest three days after it was born -- nearly three weeks before it should have. Something was wrong. But on Sunday, before zoo staff could intervene, the baby elephant-shrew was killed by its mother.

In the grand tradition of several previous baby animal naming polls, the National Zoo has opened up voting on a name for its new baby girl gorilla. With a promise that the name that gets the most votes will be chosen, an announcement will follow mid-month. That doesn't give us much time to make sure the right name is selected.

We're sure a visit to the National Zoo is the last thing on your mind on this wintry morning, but DCist never falls down on the job when there's a new baby animal to coo over, snow be damned. Two of the Zoo's black and rufous giant elephant-shrews, or sengis, had a little baby elephant-shrew several weeks ago, but zookeepers in the Small Mammal House only announced they discovered the animal late Friday. Zoo biologist Ashton Shaffer, in this Flickr video, described the birth as rare, although the two parent elephant-shrews the Zoo acquired from the Philadelphia Zoo in 2007 have had at least four offspring since they arrived in D.C.

The National Zoo got a new male red panda, Tate, from the Cape May Zoo in New Jersey over the weekend. They've already introduced him to Shama, the Zoo's female red panda, and he reportedly "immediately exhibited breeding behavior." Tate, it seems, is something of a ladies man. A bow-chicka-bow-wow from DCist to you, sir.

The National Zoo announced today that its three-week-old baby gorilla is a female. In a recent interview with DCist, the Zoo's Associate Director for Animal Care, Don Moore, explained why it can often take a long time to determine the sex of a baby gorilla, and ventured that due to the baby's lineage, it would be more important if it turned out to be a female than a male, so this is apparenly good gorilla genetic news! The baby was born on January 10 to 26-year-old mom Mandara and 16-year-old dad Baraka— read the entire interview with Moore to learn whether that 10-year age gap made for a scandalous hook-up.

Don Moore is the Associate Director for Animal Care at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. As a zoo-based wildlife biologist, Moore has helped to create conservation and animal-management plans for zoos and wild animals in nature for more than 30 years. He worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York as a curator and zoo director and has published more than four dozen papers on animal husbandry and behavior. Moore helped to launch the “Managing Animal Enrichment and Training Programs” course at George Mason University as well as the Animal Behavior and Conservation at Hunter College in New York. He appears as a guest scientist in by Amanda Lumry and Laura Hurwitz.

We got pretty excited when we noticed the National Zoo had added some video to the DCist Videos pool titled "Giant panda breeding season starts early at National Zoo." Had the Zoo just hand delivered us footage of Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, you know, doin' it? Sadly, the closest they get is just after the 1 minute mark, when the two adult pandas kind of paw at each other a little. After that, the video tragicially cuts away without showing any acción. We suppose that since Mei had to be quickly artificially inseminated because "competent mating did not occur," that could mean that there was simply no hot panda love footage available. Still, we're disappointed.

Owing to "this year's unusually early onset of reproductive activity," the District's two beloved giant pandas were at it again this week. Zoo officials recently noticed that Mei Xiang -- who usually experiences her prime ovulation (and hence, the one really good shot she has at conceiving every year) in March or April -- had increased levels of hormones in her urine. That, combined with "distinctive vocalizations" and other such flirtatious behavior, led experts to initiate the complicated business of panda mating.