The Newest, Cutest Baby Animals from the World's Zoos & Aquariums
Meet the newest residents of the Bronx Zoo – a furry foursome – one young grizzly and three brown bear cubs – rescued seperately in Montana and Alaska. Having just arrived in their new home they are clearly enjoying themselves, running, splashing, and playing even in the cold. Watch the big cubs frolic in this heartwarming video.
Photo credits: Julie Larsen
For information on these lovable, playful bears, visit the Bronx Zoo's special page for the foursome.
Born earlier this month to parents Jordan and Gigi, this baby Wolf's Guenon girl is the newest addition to the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo and can be seen year-round in the Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit.
Colorful and chatty, Wolf's Guenons are Old World Monkeys native to the area south of the Congo River in central Africa. These highly social monkeys have a wide range of calls they use to communicate with one another.
Photo Credits: Julie Larsen Maher / ©WCS
Meet the Bronx Zoo's newest arrivals: three Dwarf Mongoose pups. Curious, playful and apparently rather hyper, the three pups are exploring their surroundings in the Giraffe Building. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, Dwarf Mongooses are Africa's smallest carnivore. Despite being quite feisty in the wild, Dwarf Mongooses living near human settlements often become tame.
In June the Bronx Zoo welcomed a happy and healthy baby Coquerel's Sifaka Lemur and these pictures were taken in July. Sifakas get their name from their unmistakable "shih-fak" alarm call which starts as a low growl and ends with a loud and abrupt "fak" that can be described as a shrill hiccup.
Photo credits: Julie Larsen Maher / Wildlife Conservation Society
Frolicking!
Video credit: Luke Groskin / Wildlife Conservation Society
There’s so much going on at zoo nurseries these days we can barely keep up! Enjoy this collection of outstanding videos from Smithsonian National Zoo and Bronx Zoo.
In a 24-hour-period between July 9 and 10, a clouded leopard cub, a Przewalski’s horse, and a red panda cub
were all born at Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s Conservation and Research
Center
Looks like the Smithsonian National Zoo is gonna need a bigger bird house!
Watch a baby lemur grow from a sleepy eyed infant into a bouncing teen (in lemur years) at the Bronx Zoo
Maternal affection and contact is essential for newborn mammals to thrive. While many of the young animals featured on ZooBorns are orphans and keepers must step in, many more have doting natural mothers like baby giraffe calf "Margaret Abigail," photographed earlier this week with mom at the Bronx Zoo.
Cuter than ever, the pink bundle of “Joey” we brought you in late December is almost all grown up now, although Mom’s pouch is never far afield.
The Bronx Zoo’s
Tree Kangaroo Joey can be seen exploring his exhibit on his own, as
well as darting back to Mom’s pouch for a snooze. This exhibit is one
of the highlights at the Zoo’s “Jungleword” attraction which offers
year round access to tropical creatures including otters, gibbons, and
a tapir.
Photo credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS
As a child growing up in Connecticut, it was not unusual for me to visit the Bronx Zoo ten times in one year. It was my Disney World and science classroom rolled into one and it inspired a lifelong love of zoology that led directly (eventually) to ZooBorns. Therefore it was with extreme concern that I learned of Governor Paterson's proposal to cut funding for New York zoos, aquariums and botanic gardens from $9 million to $4 million in 2009 and cut funding entirely by 2010.
The Governor's plan is to focus funding on "capital initiatives that provide ongoing environmental benefits" rather than "annual operating support" to organizations. I believe the rationale behind this approach to be deeply flawed. Zoos and aquariums communicate the importance of conservation in a tangible way that environmental engineering projects simply cannot. What is more, they reach a far larger and more diverse audience, including millions of children, sowing the seeds of concern for the living world around us. Essentially what these institutions provide is education in its most captivating and inspiring form. This leads to careers in science and financial and political support for conservation initiatives, so I can think of no more worthwhile investment for "ongoing environmental benefits" than the education provided by the Wildlife Conservation Society – the umbrella organization for the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, and New York Aquarium.
The Governor's office can be emailed here: http://161.11.121.121/govemail
And now without further ado, we bring you a poster child for this cause, Katie the sea lion pup, born this summer at the Bronx Zoo. The pictures are just a couple of days old and come to us from ZooBorns reader Amber A.
Nap time
Katie sounds out in this video from August of last year.