Saint Louis Zoo

New year, new you. What is your #NewYearsReZOOlution? Perhaps it’s to visit the Zoo more often, or visit for the first time in a long time. Maybe it’s to face your fears of certain animals at the Bayer Insectarium or Charles H. Hoessle Herpetarium or to spend time in a part of the Zoo you haven't seen in a while. Start your #NewYearsReZOOlution today! We have resumed our winter operating hours of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. stlzoo.org/zooreservations

Happy New Year! The Zoo is closed today. We will reopen at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Free, timed-ticket reservations are required and available at stlzoo.org/zooreservations. : Micah Usher

How do you celebrate a birthday in 2020? You decorate your lawn with large birthday signs and gather virtually, of course! For 27 years, we’ve been celebrating male Asian elephant Raja’s birthday with huge signs in the form of enrichment-filled birthday presents decorating his habitat for the big day. This year, no matter where you are, you can join us virtually and celebrate with Raja from the comfort of your own couch! At 11 a.m. on Sunday, December 27 (Raja's birthday), w...e will share a very special pre-taped video of Raja’s 28th (yes, he’s 28!) birthday celebration here on Facebook and YouTube (stlzootube). The elephant care team will be sure the birthday boy and the rest of the elephant family enjoy some extra special enrichment in honor of the day. For the safety of Zoo guests, staff and the animals, there will not be any birthday celebration activities at River's Edge for guests. Photo: Robin Winkelman More info: Stlzoo.org/Raja

This week we looked back at the most popular posts from 2020. Our most popular post of 2020 and of all time is Penguin Weigh-In from April 3! The world was truly captivated by our penguin friends’ excitement for being weighed, especially when we humans dreaded putting on quarantine weight.

Winter is coming, but that doesn’t stop the level of care our animals receive from our Animal Health team. This past weekend our friends at the Saint Louis Science Center hosted Dr. Chris Hanley, Assistant Director of Animal Health at the Saint Louis Zoo, for a special presentation Animal Health and Care at the Zoo: It Doesn’t Stop When the Temperature Drops.

Still enjoying your Halloween candy from a few weeks ago? So are Pete and Izzy, our red pandas. Pete & Izzy's candy corn is an ice pop in the shape of one of Halloween’s most symbolic candies the candy corn. #fallatthezoo Photo: Daniel Schneider, Carnivore Keeper

This week we are looking back at the most popular posts from 2020. Our second most popular video is Penguin Field Trip from March 18. Our Humboldt penguins had a special field trip from their outdoor habitat to inside Penguin & Puffin coast to visit the Gentoo, king and rockhopper penguins, as well as the horned and tufted puffins.

We have reached the final day of voting in the USA Today 10Best contest for Best Zoo Lights! You have until 11 a.m. CT today to vote! Vote here: https://bit.ly/38wPR98 U.S. Bank Wild Lights continues this Wednesday through December 24, and December 26 through January 2. Bundle up and bring your loved ones to Wild Lights, a winter wonderland filled with 1 million twinkling lights. Advance tickets are required. For more information, including ticket availability and how to purchase, visit stlzoo.org/WildLights #USBankWildLights #StlZoo

This week we are looking back at the most popular posts from 2020. Our third most popular video is Grizzly Webcams from April 28. Huck and Finley celebrated our new rotating webcams by jumping up and down in their pool. You can check the live feeds at stlzoo.org/webcams

At the Saint Louis Zoo we care about orangutans every day of the year, but love any excuse to celebrate them! Join us in celebrating Orangutan Caring Week a week dedicated to inspiring others to care about orangutans and to take action to help them. Visit stlzoo.org/orangutancaringweek for special activities all about how we care for orangutans, and how you can show your care for them too. In honor of #OrangutanCaringWeek, here's another edition of Zoo Animal Stories all about orangutans!

#IntlCheetahDay #KeeperTakeover You may have heard that cheetahs can reach incredibly fast speed while running, but how are they able to make such precise turns while going so fast? The answer is with their tail! Cheetahs will use their tails as rudder for stability and to help them steer. This helps them make sharp turns while chasing prey, such as springbok. Unlike most other cats, cheetahs can’t fully retract their claws. This also helps them run faster as it gives them mo...re traction, kind of like baseball cleats. And how about that amazing stride? The extreme flexibility of the cheetah’s spine allows for more extension during running, thus making both its stride length and speed possible. There are two times in one stride when the cheetah’s body is completely off the ground: once with all four legs extended and once with all legs bunched under its body! Carnivore Keeper, Daniel Photo: Bingwa by JoEllen Toler

Children in first through fifth grades are invited to join Zoo educators for a special Black Friday virtual camp entitled Giving Green. Campers will learn how to use their creativity to make eco-friendly gifts for their friends and family and meet the animals they are helping along the way. Enjoy tours, games, crafts and hands-on activities. This virtual camp runs from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Friday, November 27. For more information and to register, visit stlzoo.org/programsforyouth

Kick off your holiday shopping at Holiday Zootique from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, November 11! Browse unique gifts you can't find anywhere else, including the 2020 ornament and homemade treats from Candy Crossing! Plan a day trip to the Zoo and shop on your way out, or swing by after work and do some browsing. Enjoy coffee, punch and pre-packaged sweet snacks in the daytime, followed by boxed hors d’oeuvres and wine and Urban Chestnut Stl Zoo Bier samplings (for adults 21 a...nd older only) after 5 p.m., while supplies last in Cafe Kudu. The event takes place in The Living World building on Government Drive; enter at the North Entrance. The Zoo will close at 5 p.m., but Holiday Zootique continues in the building until 8 p.m. Free, advance reservations required on all Zoo visits, including Holiday Zootique. stlzoo.org/holidayzootique.

We asked you to show us your spooky side by sharing a photo on Instagram using #StlZooBoo during your visit to the Zoo between October 16 and November 1. We received close to 300 submissions! Thank you to all who participated. Below are our two grand prize winners. Each will receive four tickets to our holiday lights event, U.S. Bank Wild Lights and a $75 Zoo Gift Card!... Congratulations 2grlzmomma and erinmclain_! stlzoo.org/stlzooboo

This is no trick! Halloween may have been last weekend, but here is Aspen (capybara) and Pete (red panda) getting into the spirit and enjoying their special treats thanks to their keepers. Photos: Daniel Schneider, Carnivore keeper.

The links between biodiversity, domestic animals, ecosystems, and public health are well documented, and while climate change is the most pressing environmental issue affecting health worldwide, environmental health encompasses much more. For instance, scientists monitor microbial and chemical pollution of land, water and air, while natural resource managers monitor ecosystems and the organisms that live within them. Because wildlife can serve as sentinels for ecosystem hea...lth, any indication of unusual wildlife mortality may point to harmful levels of toxins or the presence of pathogens in the environment that also may be harmful to human health. Even wildlife diseases that are not transmissible to humans can affect us, such as bee diseases that result in decreased crop pollination and production. Environmental specialists also help evaluate long-term impacts of activities such as livestock grazing on public lands and manufacturing operations. Protecting the environment and maintaining economic development can both succeed when everyone works together to find sustainable solutions. The good news is we can all help protect the health of the environmenteven small individual actions have big impacts when multiplied by many people. Ensuring clean water and adding more plant-based foods to one’s diet are two easy places to start. #OneHealthTakeover

Many of us know and love a dog that shares our home, but whether you live in the city, the suburbs, or the country, chances are you are also sharing space with other native canid species such as coyotes, red foxes and gray foxes. Just as humans and non-human animals can share diseases, so can domestic animals and wildlife. That means that when you vaccinate your dog against diseases such as rabies, canine distemper virus, and canine parvovirus, you are also taking a One Health action that protects and conserves native wildlife! stlzoo.org/blog #OneHealthTakeover

Domestic animals such as livestock are an essential component of One Health. For many people around the world, livestock are a source of high-quality nutrition and contribute to the livelihood and economic stability of households. In addition to improving the health of people, they can also have a positive effect on surrounding ecosystems. Because livestock tend to live near human settlements and interact with the surrounding environment, disease transfer between livestock..., wildlife, and humans can be a major concern. But did you know that livestock can also protect humans from infectious disease? One of the best examples of this is the concept of zooprophylaxis. This is when livestock such as cattle draw insect vectors of diseases like malaria away from humans, thus protecting people from disease. This protective effect can even be enhanced by treating livestock with insecticides, which can reduce the population of disease-carrying insects. The use of zooprophylaxis to protect humans from insect-borne diseases is a new and complex but exciting idea that will require One Health-based research approaches. Dr. Jess Carag, a postdoctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative and the Saint Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine, will be researching this by examining zebu cattle health, husbandry, and veterinary medicine in Madagascar. Madagascar is a country that is reliant on zebu cattle but is also heavily afflicted by malaria, an insect-borne disease. Evaluating the health of zebu cattle is essential to understanding the role they play in One Health and how they could potentially contribute to malaria control on this island nation. stlzoo.org/blog #OneHealthTakeover

By now, most of the world is familiar with swabbing to test for pathogens such as the coronavirus. This is not a new thing, but a standard way of collecting samples to test for disease in both human and non-human animals. In fact, we at the Saint Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine regularly take swab samples of free-range turtles in our studies to test for some of most common diseases affecting chelonian (think turtles!) health today. It’s the first step of a pr...ocess that can detect infection by a pathogen such as a virus or bacterium by pinpointing part of that pathogen’s DNA or RNA in a host such as a box turtle. Whether human, turtle, or some other organismthe process for detecting pathogens, known as a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testis generally the same, and goes to show how detecting diseases in humans is very similar to detecting diseases in animals. Much like how we need swabbing and testing for public health, we need to test animals to ensure their health, especially for those species that are threatened with extinction by diseases. Turtles and humanswe’re not so different! stlzoo.org/blog #OneHealthTakeover See more

What do snapping turtles and humans have in common? We both need clean water! Aquatic turtles such as the common snapping turtle can absorb chemicals that end up in our waterways over time, a process called bioaccumulation. While the water that comes from our taps goes through a filtration process, the water that turtles are exposed to does not, which can affect their health. It’s our responsibility to keep our rivers and lakes clean and clear of chemicals and trash that ...can be harmful to aquatic turtles and other organisms that reside in our waterways. The Saint Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine is studying free-living aquatic turtle health and toxin exposure to determine not only how healthy local populations are, but also as an indicator of how clean the water isboth for humans and for animals! stlzoo.org/blog #OneHealthTakeover See more

Follow along for a special takeover from the staff of the Saint Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine (ICM) for #OneHealthDay today. The ICM staff work to ensure human public health and wildlife conservation using the One Health approach. This approach shows how the health of all life is connected. We appreciate the ties that bind the health of human and non-human animals, and the environments that sustain all life. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it all too clear t...hat human health depends on healthy animal populations and that we must respect wildlife species to minimize the spillover of animal pathogens to humans. We also work to protect wildlife so we may prevent the next pandemic and to use a One Health approach to help minimize these shared pathogens (zoonoses) from spilling over into the human population. We humans are responsible for emergence and spread of the novel coronavirus, but we have great hope that we will also contribute to the solution and make the world a healthier place for all living things! #OneHealthTakeover See more

Thanks for the memories! On Saturday, October 31, 2020, the gates to the Emerson Children’s Zoo, an area within the Saint Louis Zoo’s 90+ acres, closed one last time. Over the next few years, we will work to reimagine, plan and redevelop this 3.5-acre space, which was occupied by a beloved children’s zoo for 51 years, into a new, permanent area for children and families. In the interim, this space will be home to a temporary dinosaur exhibit called Dinoroarus, opening in spring 2021. Since 1969, the goal of the Children’s Zoo never changed to provide dynamic experiences for all children that will inspire a love of animals and learning. The mission of connecting families and children with animals will carry forward in the planning for this new area.