Our red pandas have always been a fan favorite at the zoo, but this season you'll definitely want to stop by their exhibit on the hill. Why? Because you'll see a new face looking back at you! We are excited to introduce Justin, the newest addition to our red panda family. Justin is a five year o ... Read More
Winter, in all of its frozen glory, is upon us. Since most of our animals live outside, we get a lot of questions about where our animals live during the off-season. It's different for every animal, but the basic answer is the same: they all stay at the Zoo! This might surprise people, since Indi ... Read More
Here at The Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo we have a pair of Wrinkled Hornbills (Aceros corrugatus), Bayu (Bye-you) and Ayu (Aye-you). Bayu, which means “the wind” in Indonesian, is our 16 year old male and Ayu, meaning “beautiful,” is our 13 year old female. You can tell them apart ba ... Read More
Snot otter. Lasagna lizard. Devil dog. Hellbender. Whichever common name is used to describe North America's largest salamander, unpleasant images come to mind. Most people have never heard of hellbenders- until I started working at the Zoo, I hadn't either. This is probably because despite o ... Read More
If you were at the Zoo last Saturday, you probably saw lots of animals with pumpkins in their exhibits. While this is adorable in itself, there is a purpose for the pumpkins besides just providing cute photos! Pumpkins were actually given as a form of enrichment, which are activities or challenges w ... Read More
When you visit the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo and cast your vote at the Kids4Nature Kiosk or round up your total at the Wild Things Gift Shop, you’re helping to protect local habitat with ACRES Land Trust. Most recently, your support helped conserve and study Quog Lake, a local, wild and rare qua ... Read More
When most people think of training animals, they think of alligators, lions, or other exotic animals that would be difficult to handle. However, our keeper Maggie Sipe is here to tell you that is not always the case! Even ducks- a seemingly simple animal- take patience and dedication to "quack" the ... Read More
On the morning of Sunday, August 6th, our giraffe keepers walked into the barn to find a big surprise. Zahra, our expectant mother giraffe, was in labor! When keepers arrived for their morning shift at 7 AM, Zahra had already gone into active labor, and after a few more hours of pushing, ... Read More
The Big 5-0 is a big deal in the human world and it’s an even bigger deal in the orangutan world. If you visited the zoo recently and saw a birthday greeting for an orangutan you didn’t recognize that’s because we were celebrating the fact that Tara’s grandmother Toba turned 50 July 2! Toba ... Read More
After reading our first penguin post, you may think you're an expert on our tuxedo-wearing birds. Well, you may be, but we've got even more fun facts about the lovable creatures. A more commonly known fact about penguins may be this: our African penguins are known as "jackass penguins" due to the ... Read More