What:
Imagine a warm, sandy shoreline…the harmonious sounds of birds and falling water…a lush, light-dappled forest…a large, powerful jaguar leaping from a fallen tree…You are invited to enter the world of the jaguar, naturally, of course, at Woodland Park Zoo’s Jaguar Cove media preview and ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, June 27.

Children from the Phinney Neighborhood Center will get a sneak peek. Woodland Park Zoo Board member Janet True and 10-year-old Dylan Clements, a local boy who donated all of the money from his piggy bank to help build the new exhibit, have the distinguished honor of cutting the ribbon. Clements also participated in last spring’s groundbreaking for Jaguar Cove.

Visitors to Jaguar Cove will be immersed in the jaguar’s natural habitat, the rain forests of Central and South America, as they walk through a fallen kapok (KAY-pahk) hollow, chance a nose-to-nose encounter with a jaguar in a cave (separated by glass, of course), and observe a stream with a sandy shoreline that follows to views of a naturalistic pool fed by a waterfall.

When:
Media preview and ribbon-cutting: Friday, June 27, 8:45 a.m.
The exhibit opens to the public Saturday, June 28.

Where:
Enter the zoo through the ARC near the West Gate at N. 55th St. & Phinney Ave. N. Staff will escort you to Jaguar Cove.

Other:
Jaguar Cove was designed by The Portico Group (Seattle) and quadruples the size of the former jaguar exhibit. As visitors pass below a fallen giant buttressed tree, they may observe the jaguar padding silently on the forest floor, balancing on the trunk of a downed tree, climbing a large rock or fishing. A nearby research tent represents the work station of a multidisciplinary team of botanists, entomologists, cultural anthropologists, and researchers learning about jaguars and their habitat.

The zoo’s resident jaguar is an 8-year-old male and was born at Woodland Park Zoo. He currently weighs about 175 pounds.

Jaguar Cove is the gateway to the award-winning, 2.5-acre Tropical Rain Forest, which opened in 1992. Home to the greatest concentration of plant and animal species at the zoo, nearly 70 animal and more than 680 plant species represent African, and Central and South American rain forests. From the forest floor to the understory to the canopy, visitors encounter ocelots, poison dart frogs, snakes and birds in a beautiful, indoor environment. The outdoor loop features lemurs, two African monkey species and two western lowland gorilla groups.

Jaguar Cove is a part of the zoo’s Long-Range Plan (LRP), which generated world-renowned recognition for its revolutionary landscape exhibits.

On behalf of the jaguar, the zoo supports four different conservation projects in jaguar habitat. One project involves camera trapping jaguars in Bolivia to assess overall jaguar populations and the efficiency of protected areas in protecting these cats. Another project investigates the possibility of the presence of jaguars in southern Brazil, where jaguars are believed to be extinct from this former habitat range.

Info:
Zoo summer hours are 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. daily. Admission ranges from free for toddlers to $10.00 for adults. King County residents receive a discount. Zoo members receive free admission year-round.

Parking: $3.50. Parking is limited. Please call Metro at 206.553.3000 for bus service to the zoo. For more information about how to become a zoo member, call 206.684.4800 or 684.4026 (TTY.) Also visit the zoo’s Web site at www.zoo.org for more information about jaguars.