Q: What does it take to move bald eagles into a new home? A: An expert keeper and animal care team – and plenty of patience. It was the week of the Eagle Passage Grand Opening, and two of Northwest Trek’s new bald eagles were ready to move in. Quiet, please Early one morning, before the park filled with guests and noise, veterinarian Dr. Allison Case gathered with curator Marc Heinzman, keepers Wendi Mello and Miranda Mauck and a team of keepers and interns. All were ready to gather up the eagle pair from where they had been living behind …
Animals
Hard to believe, but it’s been a year exactly since our two grizzly cubs arrived as rescued orphans. Now well over a year old, Huckleberry and Hawthorne are much bigger, much stronger but just as lovable. The bear equivalent to teenagers, they are looking a lot more like adults, but still love to play like cubs. Our keepers are celebrating with a special enrichment at 1pm Saturday Aug. 3: yummy watermelon cake for both bears. We decided to honor the moment with a side-by-side comparison of our cubs, then and now. WEIGHT Then: Hawthorne weighed 90 lb, Huckleberry 80 lb. …
They’re smart, strong and full of personality – and they’re back at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. Brother-and-sister wolverines Rainier and Ahma, both born at Northwest Trek, have returned home, and they will make their official public debut July 13-14 in a newly renovated, 10,800-square-foot habitat. You can meet their keepers at Keeper Chats 11:30am and 1:30pm Saturday July 13 and Sunday July 14 They’ll be visible at different times as they get used to their new home – come back later if you don’t see them at first. They have plenty of trees, boulders and logs to climb and explore, …
Forget the ugly duckling. These cygnets are only a week old, and already beautiful. But the six baby swans, which hatched early June at Northwest Trek, aren’t just pint-sized bundles of fluffy gray cuteness. They’re part of a success story for trumpeter swans in North America, helping the species flourish in the wild. “This year we had six cygnets, which is more than we’ve had in years,” said curator Marc Heinzman. “It’s great to see such a healthy population here.” Paired for life, breeding for the future The new cygnets were hatched to the wildlife park’s breeding pair of swans, …
Soar like an eagle on a zip line Our bald eagles are coming this summer to Eagle Passage, and you can swoop with the same grace and speed (well, almost) on one of our five exhilarating zip line course, from Super Kid (ages 5 and up) through Sensation (ages 18+). Book here. Build like a beaver at Kids’ Trek Beavers are nature’s engineers, reshaping their environment to build dams and lodges. Build a fort of branches in our Kids’ Trek playground and test out your engineering skills! Then come visit our beavers in the Forest+Wetland habitat, resting, swimming or …
Spring means baby animals – and ours are here! In the Free-Roaming Area, take a Discovery Tram Tour and keep a lookout for fuzzy orange bison calves or tiny white bighorn lambs hidden in the ferns. Stay tuned for more animals as they are born! And don’t forget our other young animals. Grizzly cubs Hawthorne and Huckleberry are nearly 18 months old now, and growing up fast.: digging, swimming, climbing. Our mountain goat kids are nearly one year old and still roam in a big, fluffy white pack in the Free-Roaming Area. Happy spring! (Click on a photo to open …
It’s a sunny spring afternoon at Northwest Trek, and in the Free-Roaming Area pond a small turtle is basking on a log. Keeper Dave Meadows, passing by, stops the truck and whips out a camera – because this is no ordinary turtle. It’s a rare western pond turtle, endangered in Washington. And it’s the first one seen at the wildlife park in two years. “You really only see them in spring, when they come out of hibernation and it’s sunny, but before the water levels fall too much,” says Meadows. Native – and endangered Western pond turtles are around 4-8 …
Giving a porcupine a physical exam can get a bit prickly – but our stellar veterinary team managed it easily! Head veterinarian Dr. Allison Case and veterinary technician Sara Dunleavy gave Thistle the porcupine his annual wellness exam recently, including ear, nose, eye and mouth checks, vital signs, palpation, blood tests and more, giving Thistle a clean bill of health. Here are the photos (click to expand).
It’s a cold morning at Northwest Trek – a hushed, frozen stillness rising off the lake. But it’s not bothering Fern at all. The black bear has her head down, wrenching a branch off a fir tree to pad out her winter den. As she does, keeper Angela Gibson looks on in satisfaction: this is no ordinary holiday tree. It’s a piece of enrichment, carefully designed to improve Fern’s life – and it’s definitely working. “Enrichment is about providing the animals with experiences where they can express their natural behaviors and desires,” explains Gibson. “It creates opportunities for the animals …
Mountain goat kids from the Olympics introduced to new home at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. A group of mountain goat kids scampered into the vast expanses of our 435-acre Free-Roaming Area Tuesday morning and began exploring their new home. There were five altogether. Four of the young goats – females Fairchild and Bailey and males Klahhane and Elwha – will remain at Northwest Trek where they can choose to roam through meadows, forested areas and rocky hillsides. The fifth eventually will move to another zoo. We are delighted to provide a permanent home for these mountain goat kids. We know …