Woodland Park Zoo

About Woodland Park Zoo

Woodland Park Zoo is a wildlife conservation organization and zoological garden in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It is AZA-accredited and has around 900 animals representing 250 species, drawing more than a million visitors a year. The zoo has received more than 65 awards across multiple categories over its history, including a run of Best National Exhibit awards from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) — the zoo ranks second nationally, behind only the Bronx Zoo, for the number of these awards it has won.

The zoo occupies the western half of Woodland Park and, as of a 2010 count, covers 92 acres of exhibits, public spaces, parking, and playgrounds. Its collection at that time included roughly 1,090 animal specimens across 300 species, among them 35 endangered and 5 threatened species, alongside 7,000 trees, more than 50,000 shrubs and herbs, and over 1,000 plant species. Rather than being organized by taxonomy, the zoo groups its exhibits by geographic region and habitat type — Tropical Asia, the African Savanna, Australasia, the Living Northwest Trail, Tropical Rainforest, and Temperate Forest — a layout built around Woodland Park's landmark contribution to zoo design: the naturalistic, landscape-immersion exhibit.

History

The zoo began as a private menagerie on the estate of Guy C. Phinney, a Canadian-born lumber mill owner and real estate developer. Six years after Phinney's death, on December 28, 1899, his widow sold the 188-acre Woodland Park to the city of Seattle for $5,000 in cash plus the assumption of a $95,000 mortgage — a sum so large that the mayor at the time, W.D. Wood, vetoed the acquisition before being overruled by the city council. In 1902 the Olmsted Brothers firm of Boston was hired to design Seattle's parks, including Woodland Park, and the following year the animal collection from the private Leschi Park menagerie was moved to Phinney Ridge, effectively founding the zoo.

A major expansion was approved in 1968 as part of the city's Forward Thrust ballot measures, with a master plan by architect George Bartholick that included a lid over Aurora Avenue and new exhibits to the east in Woodland Park; local opposition led to the plan's rejection in a 1974 citywide ballot initiative. The zoo's defining design moment came in 1975, when director David Hancocks redesigned the gorilla exhibit into what became known as a landscape immersion exhibit — animals and visitors sharing a naturalistic setting built with real plants and rockwork, with the acoustics specifically treated to keep the environment calm. The concept drew heavy skepticism at first, with critics questioning how the vegetation would be maintained and whether visibility would suffer, but it went on to become a standard approach in naturalistic zoo design worldwide, generally credited as the world's first immersion exhibit.

Later changes reflect shifts in the zoo's animal programs: the Elephant Forest exhibit was rethemed as the Assam Rhino Reserve following the phase-out of the zoo's elephant program in April 2015, reopening for rhinoceros in May 2018. The zoo's last two Asian elephants, Bamboo and Chai, moved to the Oklahoma City Zoo in 2015 and have since died. In September 2024, Guadalupe, the zoo's last hippopotamus, moved to the San Diego Zoo.

Exhibits and habitats

Tropical Asia is the zoo's largest section, focused on South and Southeast Asia and split into three areas. The Assam Rhino Reserve centers on Glenn, the zoo's Indian rhinoceros; Banyan Wilds is home to Malayan tigers, sloth bears, Asian small-clawed otters, and a small aviary; and the Trail of Vines houses orangutans, siamangs, pythons, and Malayan tapir.

The African Savanna recreates the grasslands of Africa, with a large herbivore area for reticulated and Rothschild's giraffe, Burchell's zebra, and common ostrich, plus enclosures for African lion, common warthog, Patas monkey, spotted hyena, and a small aviary for savanna birds; the section also includes a recreation of an East African village and won an AZA exhibit award in 1981.

Australasia holds the zoo's Australian species, including an outdoor exhibit shared by emu, common wallaroo, and red-necked wallaby, next to Willawong Station, where visitors can feed several species of Australian parrot for a small fee, and a nearby snow leopard enclosure. The Living Northwest Trail, modeled on a real trail in Alaska's Denali National Park, focuses on taiga animals of northwestern America — grizzly bear, mountain goat, elk, river otter, Steller's sea eagle, and wolf — and won the AZA Exhibit Award in 1995.

Tropical Rainforest covers animals of South America and Africa's jungles, with a jaguar exhibit on the South American side and western lowland gorillas, ring-tailed lemurs, red ruffed lemurs, and colobus monkeys on the African side; it received the AZA Exhibit Award in 1993. Temperate Forest showcases species of the world's temperate woodlands — southern pudu, red panda, Chilean flamingo, red-crowned and white-naped cranes, and maned wolves — along with a wetlands area, a conservation aviary for rare birds, a Bug House home to the zoo's Partula snails, and a farm exhibit where guests can pet Kunekune pigs, sheep, goats, and miniature Jersey steer.

Other features include a penguin enclosure housing several dozen Humboldt penguins, remodeled in 2009 for underwater viewing and green-energy operation, which won the AZA Top Honor Award in 2010; a butterfly garden; a raptor center; and the Trail of Adaptations building, home to a Komodo dragon and meerkats. Tree kangaroos and Indian peafowl are kept off-view from general visitors, with peafowl roaming freely around the grounds. An indoor children's play area called Zoomazium and a solar-powered carousel — originally built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company for the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918 before being refurbished and donated to Woodland Park — round out the property.

Animal highlights

Woodland Park Zoo lists around 900 animals from at least 250 species on its website, though an earlier count put the collection at roughly 1,090 specimens across 300 species, including 35 endangered and 5 threatened species. Species named across the zoo's exhibits include Indian rhinoceros, Malayan tiger, sloth bear, orangutan, Malayan tapir, African lion, reticulated and Rothschild's giraffe, spotted hyena, grizzly bear, gray wolf, jaguar, western lowland gorilla, red panda, snow leopard, Humboldt penguin, and Komodo dragon. Notable individual animals in the zoo's history include Bobo, a western lowland gorilla who lived at the zoo from 1953 to 1968 and became one of Seattle's best-known attractions, and Yola, a gorilla born at the zoo in December 2015 to Nadiri, herself born there. A baby giraffe, Lulu, was born in June 2017, and brown bear cubs Juniper and Fern arrived from Alaska and Montana in 2022 after being orphaned as cubs.

Conservation and programs

Woodland Park Zoo positions itself as a wildlife conservation organization first and works with the Oregon Zoo, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other conservation partners on recovery projects for threatened and endangered species, including the Oregon silverspot butterfly and the western pond turtle. The zoo also runs educational programs for school children and cooperates with regional higher-education institutions, including the University of Washington, on this work.

Planning your visit

Woodland Park Zoo is located at 601 N 59th St in Seattle. The zoo has drawn more than a million visitors annually in past years, and it hosts ZooTunes, a summer concert series held on the zoo's North Meadow since 1983 that raises funds for zoo programs and can accommodate around 3,700 attendees in its outdoor amphitheater setup.

No current hours, ticket prices, or parking details were available in the source material used for this page — check the zoo's official website for up-to-date information before planning a visit, including accessibility accommodations and food service options.