It was the calm after the storm– a beautiful, sunny day following a weekend of heavy rain– and Lily and Reed were going on their first date. They were set up by people who deeply cared for them, and everyone was hoping they’d hit it off. That’s probably how their meet-cute story would start… if they were humans. But, in this case, Lily and Reed are trumpeter swans at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. But, their story is just as sweet. After all, there’s a reason swans symbolize love. Swans are one of the few species known for being monogamous for …

Graceful arched antlers. Soft fuzzy velvet. And then – a touch of deep, blood-filled red. Welcome to the rut, that breeding season for animals like the bison, elk, caribou, bighorn sheep and deer that call our Free-Roaming Area home. If you know anything about rut, you’ll know that for Roosevelt elk and others in the deer family, it means sparring with huge antler clashes to vie for herd dominance. But there’s a less audible part of the rut that’s just as visually striking – and is essential to all that antler clashing. Losing velvet. Velvet (in animal terms) is the …

TACOMA/EATONVILLE– As a powerful heat wave hits the greater Tacoma area with temperatures nearing 100-degrees, keepers at both Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, Wash. and Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Eatonville, Wash. are finding ways to keep the animals cool. Like many kids on a hot day, the 3-year-old grizzly bears at Northwest Trek plunge, splash and wrestle in water. The bears have a 7-feet-deep pool all to themselves! “We love watching the bears enjoy their pool,” said keeper Haley Withers. “When the temperature is this high, we give them constant access to the water.” Withers also ensures …

Human athletes might be battling it out for medals at the Olympic Games in Japan this month, but here at Northwest Trek, we have our own incredible athletes to celebrate: our animals! Who can leap the furthest? Climb the highest? Who’s the fastest swimmer, the cleanest diver, the most agile? Check out our “gold medal” list for the winners – we might even have a couple of honorable mentions for effort! Climbing – Mountain goat No contest here: mountain goats are excellent climbers, hence the name. Swimming – Beaver They may not win the speed prize, but anyone who can …

Zookeepers and the animals they love What’s the animal you feel most deeply inside? The one you connect with, love, relate to, share traits with? For National Zookeeper Week 2021, we asked our longest-tenured keepers that very same question. Then our incredible staff photographer Katie Cotterill took portraits of both keeper AND animal, superimposing them in her camera as a double-exposure shot. The results are magic. (Curious about how she did it? Scroll to the bottom to find out.) Deanna, with Ellinor the mountain goat   Miranda, with Ahma the wolverine   Wendi, with Yakima the golden eagle   Dave, …

Welcome, Nettle! After a week of public voting, fans chose this plant as the name for the new mountain goat kid, born May 29 at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. The name was one of a slate of three names chosen by keepers after Northwest plants or locations, per park tradition. Nettle is a common plant found in many parts of the Free-Roaming Area, where all the park’s mountain goats live. Brinnon is a town along the eastern edge of the Olympic peninsula, while Briar is a general term for prickly, rambling shrubs. Over 900 votes came in online during the …

It’s not every day you get asked to name someone else’s kid. But Northwest Trek Wildlife Park is inviting the public to help name theirs – a mountain goat kid, born May 29 in the Free-Roaming Area. The female kid was born to mom Bailey, one of five goat kids that arrived at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in fall 2018 under a multi-agency project to relocate non-native mountain goats from Washington’s Olympic Mountains to the North Cascades where their populations were depleted. Northwest Trek partnered with Woodland Park Zoo and Oregon Zoo to provide permanent homes to goat kids without …

Summer’s here – that means sun, splashing and celebrating Independence Day. Over at Northwest Trek’s Eagle Passage, though, we’re thinking about eagle feathers. From grooming to shedding to collecting and honoring, the feathers of America’s iconic symbol are important to all of us – and are helping give the two-year-old habitat a new summer look, too. Cheveyo’s Pool Well, it’s not her pool exclusively, of course. But the brand-new bathing pool in Eagle Passage is on Cheveyo’s side of the walkway by design, giving the one-winged eagle “warrior” (the meaning of her name, in Hopi) first dibs on splashing, bathing …

Northwest Trek’s springtime baby animal boom is on! A mountain goat kid, three elk calves and three bighorn sheep lambs were all born in May at the wildlife park and can be spotted in the 435-acre Free-Roaming Area. More animal births are still expected as well. Over the Memorial Day weekend, the mountain goat kid was born to 3-year-old mom, Bailey. Zoological Curator Marc Heinzman said keepers are closely monitoring the new family. “Keepers have seen the kid nursing and spending time moving around with its mother Bailey,” said Heinzman. “The pair is spending a lot of their time up …

Working as a horticulturist at a wildlife park comes with all kinds of job duties, some a little more unusual than others. Northwest Trek’s lead horticulturist Jake Pool plants hundreds of trees a year inside the park, monitors the health of all the trees for the safety of the animals and guests, and helps design animal habitats (like using a fallen tree and turning it into a climbing log for the raccoons). And, sometimes he picks plants for the park’s porcupine. Recently, Pool collected a variety of plants and flowers from the park’s grounds for Thistle the porcupine. Pool found …