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 …

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 …

Keeper Dave Meadows stood 30 feet from a massive bull bison. Fully-grown, the bull weighed around 2,500 pounds – just a bit less than a Mini Cooper – and stood solidly on the rutted track in Northwest Trek’s Free-Roaming Area. His breath steamed against his thick, shaggy fur. Then he opened his mouth, tongue lolling, and gave a long, growling bellow. “Come on! Heeeeere, boy,” called Meadows, and rattled a bucket of feed. The bison bull stared for a long moment. Then he lowered his 200-pound head and ambled toward Meadows. Swiftly, the keeper stowed the feed bucket back in …

It’s cold. It’s wet. It’s the Pacific Northwest in winter – and that includes Northwest Trek. But there’s also a certain magic out here in winter: hushed silence, frosted ferns, thick bison coats. Don’t wait until spring. Here are seven reasons to visit Northwest Trek in the most magical season of the year – winter. 1. Peace and Quiet Feeling that cabin fever yet? Step onto our paved trails and experience nature at its most hushed. Tall, solemn trees; quiet meadows; a lake so still it reflects the mist. Come spend the day in the kind of peace that refreshes …

Dust flying, shaggy heads butting, deep rumbles. Rut (breeding) season has begun with our bison! As bulls look to dominate the herd and attract the ladies, they roll and spar with each other, raising dust and making big vocalizations. Book a Wild Drive or Keeper Adventure Tour and get front-row seats to the most exciting time of year at Northwest Trek – and meanwhile, watch the video to get a taste of the action.  

EATONVILLE, Wash.– Northwest Trek Wildlife Park is reopening its Keeper Adventure Tours on Friday, Aug. 14, with timed online tickets and enhanced safety protocols designed to help guests connect up close with wildlife while staying safe and healthy. Timed online tickets will go on sale Aug. 10. The 90-minute Keeper Adventure Tours take guests aboard an open-air Jeep on paved roads rarely traveled, on gravel tracks and occasionally off-road to see bison, moose, mountain goats, elk, deer, swans and more in the park’s 435-acre Free-Roaming Area. If guests book now, they can see Northwest Trek’s baby animals and experience the …

We all love summer in the Pacific Northwest, but there’s no doubt that some days get pretty hot. Humans are pretty creative in finding ways to beat the heat – splashing, shade, cool clothes – and our Northwest Trek animals do it too! Grizzly bear Our grizzly “cubs” Huckleberry and Hawthorne just love the pool in their huge forested habitat. They plunge, paddle, splash and dive, playing underneath the waterfall and generally having a lot of fun! When the cubs were small, our maintenance staff put a false bottom in the pool to keep it safely shallow while they learned …

It’s summer – and that means baby animal time at Northwest Trek! Book a Wild Drive Premier Tour and head out to our Free-Roaming Area meadows to look for bison and elk calves, black-tailed deer fawns and maybe even a bighorn sheep lamb or two. “It’s my favorite time of year!” said Jessie Knust, assistant naturalist, who has guided tours around the Free-Roaming Area for 5 years. How hard is it to spot little ones? Well, it depends on the animal. Bison calves Bison calves are the easiest, says Knust. With their rust-orange coats and hefty size (a bison already …