Welcome, Hiiro
What’s better than a celebrity couple? A royal couple! We’re thrilled to welcome our female red-crowned crane ‘Ruby’ back to zoo grounds along with her new habitat-mate, male ‘Hiiro’. In August, Ruby…
Read MorePrehistoric Park is temporarily closed today (October 22nd) due to icy conditions.
The African Rainforest building will open at 11:30 a.m. on October 24th due to scheduled maintenance.
Land of Lemurs Walkthrough & Outdoor Gorilla Amphitheatre: The two outdoor animal viewing areas will close for the season beginning on October 15. Lemurs and gorillas will be viewable in their indoor habitats.
PETRONAS Gateway to Asia: The building will have adjusted viewing from September 23 until mid-November while we complete mechanical upgrades to the Malayan tapir habitat. Komodo dragons will remain viewable indoors. Malayan tapirs and red-crowned cranes will be viewable in their outdoor habitats (weather permitting). White-handed gibbons will not be viewable for the duration of the project.
African Savannah Yard: Our Hartmann’s mountain zebras and ostriches will be off-view until the end of the year while we complete exciting upgrades in the African Savannah Yard, including the construction of a new Savannah Barn for the animals. Our giraffe tower will continue to be viewable throughout the project.
Thank you for your understanding.
Bite-Sized
A healthy set of hooves is essential to an animal’s health and well-being! Healthy hooves can help ensure that a hoofed mammal is free from infection, comfortable walking, and free from arthritis or other joint issues.
But what is a hoof exactly? A hoof is made of keratin, the same protein that makes up our human hair and fingernails. An animal’s hoof is essentially an enlarged big toe, which is made of two parts – the unguis and the subunguis. The unguis is the exterior of the subunguis, forming the nail portion of the hoof, while the subunguis is the fine layer on the underside of the nail. These words give hoofed mammals their name – an animal with hooves is called an ungulate!
Hoof care is an ongoing process at the zoo. In addition to carefully monitoring the hooves of the different species that live at the zoo, one key part of hoof care is habitat design. The keratin in hooves naturally wears down as an animal moves through its environment. Here at the zoo, a variety of different substrates allow our animal residents to naturally wear down their hooves.
Let’s take the Rocky Mountain goat habitat, for instance. Rocky Mountain goats are famous for their hooves (pictured), which are cloven with two toes that are spread wide for balance on precarious rock ledges. Their toes have rough pads on the bottom, which gives them excellent grip like a climbing shoe. With rough rocks in the habitat, our goat herd gets tons of natural wear that allows them to move nimbly and make incredible leaps and bounds.
Thoughtful habitat design, coupled with exemplary care from our Animal Care, Health & Welfare team helps to keep our resident ungulates healthy and comfortable!