Latest news with #DetroitZoo
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Detroit Zoo's red panda twins moved to Ohio, Connecticut zoos
Two 11-month-old red pandas at the Detroit Zoo have left their parents for new homes across the country. Female red panda twins Patti and Ponya have been moved to the Akron Zoo in Ohio and Beardsley Zoo in Connecticut, respectively, the Detroit Zoo shared on social media. The Beardsley Zoo announced Ponya's arrival in May. The Akron Zoo announced Patti's arrival in June and has apparently changed her name to Sundara. Even though the twins are gone, Detroit Zoo visitors can still see parents Ginger and Ravi at the Holtzman Wildlife Foundation Red Panda Forest. "In the wild, red panda cubs grow independent from their parents after about a year — so this next step is a natural part of growing up!" according to the Detroit Zoo. Patti and Ponya were born almost a year ago on June 17. The birth made Ginger a first-time mom, who was 3 years old at the time. Their dad, Ravi, was 7. The twins' transfers were recommended by the Red Panda Species Survival Plan, according the zoo. "While we'll miss their playful presence, we're proud to see them take this next step," the zoo said. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Zoo's red panda twins moved to Ohio, Connecticut zoos
Axios
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Things to do Memorial Day weekend in Metro Detroit
🕺 Hear techno of the past, present and future at the Movement electronic music festival. Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-midnight; Monday, 2-11pm. General admission three-day passes are $365 and day passes are $206. 🖼️ Browse local artists' booths and grab food at the Kensington Art Fair in Milford. Free to attend. Saturday and Sunday, 10-6pm; Monday, 10-4pm. 🐉 Explore a forest of dragons at the Detroit Zoo. Starting Saturday and running through Sept. 7, 9:30am-5pm. Tickets are an extra $6 when buying zoo passes. 🍷 Sample adult beverages while enjoying the weather at the Royal Oak Beer, Wine and Cocktail Festival. $45 per ticket, but with buy-one-get-one options. Saturday, 5-9pm. 🍾 Sip bottomless mimosas at the 13th annual DRUNKBRUNCH at Mix Bricktown. $40 for brunch, $55 including bottomless drinks. Sunday, 10am-4pm. 🎷 Connect with house, soul and jazz music while you shop vendors at the Detroit Diaspora Day Festival at the Norwood event venue. $18 for two tickets. Sunday, 12pm-midnight. 🤓 Try out a Detroit scavenger hunt through Let's Roam.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Detroit Zoo's new baby penguin, Atticus, finally viewable to public: When you can see him
On the heels of last week's World Penguin Day, the Detroit Zoo is marking a milestone with the public debut of its newest king penguin chick, Atticus – who weighs a whopping 40 pounds at just eight months old! Baby Atticus' egg was laid in June 2024. King penguin chicks develop for an average of 50 days; he hatched on Aug. 19, 2024. 'His parents had raised a chick before, so they had experience,' said Detroit Zoological Society (DZS) bird department supervisor Lindsay Ireland. 'Whenever our king penguins lay eggs in the habitat, we move them to an area not visible, an off-exhibit holding area, so they can incubate their eggs safely and quietly and not be disturbed by the other birds. King penguins co-parent, so they'll take turns incubating the egg and turns feeding the chick once it's hatched. Once the penguin is older, they spend less time sitting on their parents' feet being brooded, which is just them kind of hunching over and keeping the chick warm.' Now, at eight months, Atticus has begun molting, losing his feathers to completely replace his feather coating. 'Atticus is very curious,' Ireland said of the chick's personality. 'Chunk is his father, and King 25 is his mother. They're both very calm birds, so he kind of inherited that from them. Kings, overall, are a little more standoffish with us. They don't really like to be handled or come up to interact with us a lot, but these parents and Atticus are a little more in tune with what we're doing and they want to know what's going on. 'He likes enrichment that the keepers give to him, so when the parents are out in the habitat and he's in the holding space by himself, the keepers give him mirrors to look at. They give him bubbles and little balls to play with, and he loves all that.' More: Detroit Zoo celebrates World Penguin Day with wild penguin conservation work More: Detroit Zoo announces immersive, 7-acre Discovery Trails project to open in 2026 While still spending most of his time behind the scenes, Atticus has, in fact, made his public debut, to the delight of many zoogoers. Ireland shared when guests might catch a glimpse of the chick, and speculated on what's to come in his next six months. 'He's starting his introductions three times a week, where the public can see him,' she said. 'Every time we have divers in our pool, we bring Atticus out so he can get a little more comfortable with all the other birds in the habitat, so if guests come first thing in the morning on Tuesday, Thursday or Friday, they have a chance of seeing him before he goes back in when our dive team is done. 'Eventually, once he is fully molted and has his waterproof features, he will start going out every day and will start increasing that time. He might just be out for a few hours in the morning and start increasing that to where he's out full-time during the day when our keepers are in the building. We see him, in this timeframe, getting in and out of the pool really well.' Another notable thing about Atticus is his size: At just six months old in February, the chick weighed in at a large-and-in-charge 35.42 pounds – more than either of his parents, and equivalent to the weight of a three- or four-year-old. 'Yeah, he's a big boy,' said Ireland. 'At his heaviest, which was about a week and a half ago, he was over 43 pounds. He's just under 40 pounds right now, which is on the average or a little more than average for kings. But, as soon as he's done molting and starts moving around, he'll start losing weight and become a nice, trim male king penguin.' Ireland also spoke about how Atticus' birth and study fit into DZS' larger goal of promoting and facilitating penguin conservation globally. 'Anytime that we can raise a penguin in captivity, it really helps us be able to spread that message of what it's like in the wild for penguins – specifically (as pertains to) breeding,' she said. 'A lot of wild penguins' food resource is starting to get depleted because of overfishing and climate change, so we can highlight the troubles that penguins in the wild are starting to have, which is starting to cause a decline in their numbers. 'Everybody's really excited about a king penguin chick, or any penguin chick, so we can really start to highlight the conservation side and what's needed to help protect the wild penguins.' The Detroit Zoo is located at 8450 W. 10 Mile Rd., Royal Oak. General admission is $27, with a reduced youth and senior rate of $24. To learn more or plan your visit, go to Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@ This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Zoo's new baby penguin now viewable: How you can see him
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Detroit Zoo celebrates World Penguin Day with wild penguin conservation work
April 25 is World Penguin Day, and the Detroit Zoo is celebrating an ongoing study benefiting wild penguins. Since 2013, the Detroit Zoo has partnered with Falklands Conservation, a nature organization based in the Falkland Islands that monitors seabird and other wildlife populations. As part of their seabird program, Detroit Zoo staff helped count the number of penguins around the region. Staff traveled to various, far-flung islands. Drones were purchased so that workers could do aerial surveys and count that way, saving great time and effort. During that partnership, Falkland Conservation noticed alarming population declines. 'All seabird populations are declining,' said Ann Duncan, Associate Vice President of Life Sciences for the Detroit Zoological Society (DZS). 'The animals that are near to the polar areas of the world are being affected quite a bit by climate change, so they were concerned about the things that might be causing these decreases – particularly the impact petroleum activity in the area might have.' The DZS' bird curator at the time reached out to the animal health team, led by Duncan. In order to create a study that would explore those impacts, Duncan led a small team to the Falklands in 2018, 2019 and 2024, going each time in autumn, which is nesting season. Blood samples and toxicology testing were done to look for evidence of an immune symptom response to various diseases, a process called serology. 'We also look for the pathogens themselves,' said Duncan, 'using PCR and looking for the DNA of the types of pathogens that we think would impact penguins in the wild. It's a big effort. Traveling to the Falklands is challenging; it takes over two days to get there, and we ship our supplies ahead of time. We have to keep the samples cold when we transport them back from the Falklands, so we travel with a great, big dry shipping liquid nitrogen tank that maintains a really cold temperature inside and keeps the samples preserved.' Duncan said the exploration of the samples is ongoing. 'What we do know,' she said, 'is that high path avian influenza is a global concern and has had an impact on some marine mammals in the area north of the Falklands, so we're taking a closer look at that. We see evidence of other diseases, but for the most part, the penguins that we've looked at have been healthy, and that's a good thing to see. 'However, there had been one site where we generally sample the penguins, that the landowner had noticed the number of rock hopper penguins in that colony had decreased by a lot. They didn't want us to go into that colony to collect samples, because they're concerned. There are some areas where the flock sizes are still good, and other areas where the flock sizes are not good, so this kind of work, looking at what's impacting these animals, is important to understanding them.' One thing the study allowed them to do was compare and contrast samples from penguins that were far away from humans and petroleum with populations that were closer to those influences. 'There are so many pressures on wild populations,' said Duncan. 'Some of them are climate, some of them are man-made things like the petroleum industry in the area. One of the reasons why Falklands Conservation wanted to partner with us is because it may be possible to learn if there are certain contaminants in the environment, and measures that could be taken to change things, or policies that could be written that could change the way things are done. If they could prove that there was an impact coming from petroleum shipping or from oil spills or other things going on in the area, they might be able to influence and avoid some of those things moving forward. That's the ultimate goal.' See also: Detroit's Hannan Center called 'one of Michigan's best-kept secrets' for senior citizens Duncan emphasized that science is important, and that every citizen is capable of helping with conservation. 'Science is real,' she said. 'It is evidence-based. It's performed by scientists who are trained, and it can spark and ignite an interest in the people who live in the Detroit area, understanding more about the ways that animal populations are being impacted globally, and looking for ways that they can make a difference. And that can be financial support to an organization that's doing work. It can be just learning more and talking about it, and igniting that spark in other people. It can be visiting the zoo, because when you visit the zoo, your financial support of admission does go toward our conservation programs. That's partly how we fund this. 'And it can be voting. It can be getting active and influencing legislation here in the United States that impacts things like climate change, impacts things like clean water, impacts things that are affecting wildlife everywhere, including in Michigan, in our area, in our footprint. All of those things are interwoven.' David Dimitrie, DZS Director of Conservation, said the work being done here at the Detroit Zoo results in the zoo being able to help animals in the wild. 'By having our animals at the Detroit Zoo,' he said, 'and having our team who are managing them and handling them and taking care of them day in and day out, and having Dr. Ann's team, with their knowledge, we are able to really provide an important health benefit to our partners in the field, and that expertise that I think can help leverage and elevate the conservation work that it happening. 'And so, what we're doing at the Zoo is allowing us to then go out into the field and also help with these important conversation projects. It's really exciting to have the animals here at the zoo, but also to have those skill sets that we can bring back out into the field.' Duncan agreed. 'There's actually a viral disease that is to some extent impacting cat populations in managed care at other zoos and aquariums right now,' she said. 'One of the things we're going to do is test the animals in the wild to understand if this is also impacting wild penguins. That work can also help us inform the care of our animals that live here at the Detroit Zoo, so it does go both ways.' Dimitrie emphasized that the Zoo is proud to be able to add support to projects like this. 'We have a really important skill set and a suite of scientific expertise,' said Dimitrie. 'We have Dr. Ann and her team from the vet and the health side of things. We have our bird team going down as well, and we have our penguins here at the Detroit Zoo. But we're also really focused on their conservation in the field, as well. That baseline data can really help us begin to untangle these different potential threats that the wildlife are facing down in the Falklands. 'But, at the same time, I think one of our roles is to always be thinking and looking ahead to the future and to the next potential conservation challenge that's going to be facing these habitats and these animals down there. Having this relationship and this work already established there can really help us be champions and leaders for helping to guide what the future of conservation may look like.' To learn more or support the Detroit Zoo's conservation efforts, visit To learn more about Falklands Conservation, visit Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@ This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Zoo celebrates World Penguin Day with conservation work
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Detroit Zoo announces passing of beloved Bactrian camel, Rusty
The Detroit Zoo is mourning the loss of a beloved male Bactrian camel, who was euthanized last week, according to a post on the zoo's official Facebook page. The camel, named Rusty, became a member of the zoo family after arriving from Brookfield Zoo Chicago in 2009. During his 16 years at the Detroit Zoo, Rusty formed a deep bond with his mate, Suren, and together they raised four offspring, the zoo reported. "Though he was a bit shorter in stature than most camels, his thick, dark coat and strong, stocky build made him an unforgettable presence. His full winter coat was truly a sight to behold!" the zoo's post reads. The zoo did not share Rusty's age or prompted his euthanasia, but the zoo shared appreciation for the veterinary and care teams that supported the animal "through his later years." In 2023, the Detroit Zoo announced the passing of Humphrey, a 9-year-old camel that was an offspring of Rusty and Suren. Humphrey reportedly developed stiffness and mobility issues and was diagnosed with chronic osteoarthritis in multiple limbs. After the disease progressed and veterinary staff no longer had a way to provide relief, he was euthanized. Bactrian camels, the heaviest members of the camel family, have two humps, unlike the single hump of its Arabian relatives, according to National Geographic. The humps are used to store fat, which can be converted into water and energy, the publication reports. Like Arabian camels, Bactrians rarely sweat, helping them conserve fluids for long periods of time. When camels do drink, though, they can devour an incredible amount of water, reaching up to 30 gallons in only 13 minutes, according to National Geographic. Habitat: Asian Forest Type: Mammals Diet: Herbivore Size: 7 feet tall at the humps Weight: Over 2,000 pounds Median life expectancy: 17 years This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Zoo announces death of beloved Bactrian camel, Rusty
