News Archive

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and its members and guests are celebrating a huge milestone: $1 million raised for orangutan conservation. Over the years, funds allocated from Zoo membership revenue and daytime admissions have supported a variety of efforts that benefit critically endangered wild orangutans in Southeast Asia. Wild orangutans’ biggest threat is habitat destruction. Efforts funded . . .

Last month, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo members cast their votes to help the Zoo decide how to spend $75,000 of member conservation funds among staff-championed conservation projects vying for members’ support. The three projects with the most votes received the full funding they requested. Every membership and every visit to the Zoo is conservation in action. . . .

Waddle we do with all this cuteness? A tiny, fluffy African penguin chick made its grand debut at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in early April! This little one is growing up big and strong. At just 22 days old, the chick weighs 983 grams! Its care team monitors and weighs it every few days. This little . . .

Visitors to Primate World, at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, may soon notice two crates in the orangutan yard. These crates are part of the Zoo’s careful preparations to help two iconic Sumatran orangutans, 6-year-old Kera and her mother, 37-year-old Sumagu, get ready for their next chapter. The mother-daughter duo is scheduled to move to another AZA-accredited . . .

Thanks to the support of Zoo guests and members, wild critically endangered African penguins have ongoing support. One of the key people leading this charge in the field is the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds’ (SANCCOB) Penguin and Seabird Ranger, Yandisa Cwecwe. Working side-by-side with African penguins on South Africa’s historic . . .

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo established The International Center for the Care and Conservation of Giraffe (The Giraffe Center) in 2022. With three full-time employees, The Giraffe Center is a concentrated effort by CMZoo to consolidate resources, expand educational programs to improve and enrich the lives of giraffe in human care throughout the world, and inspire conservation . . .

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s highly competitive Summer Teen Program application period opens on Sat., Feb. 1. The three-month program takes a unique approach to fostering nature stewardship and inspiring young people to take part in protecting the wild world. Soon, it will welcome new and returning participants for summer 2025. Applications for the program for sixth . . .

In 2023, Zoo members voted to fund GPS trackers that U.S. Fish & Wildlife and the USDA Forest Service are using to study Mexican spotted owls in New Mexico and Arizona. They hope to learn what sort of habitat features Mexican spotted owls are using to nest, and what they are avoiding. The data collected . . .

Quarters for Conservation Legacy Project: Palm Oil Conservation The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) recognized Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s collaborative palm oil conservation work at the RSPO annual conference in Bangkok last month. PalmOil Scan, a global mobile app that empowers consumers to choose companies that commit to using sustainable palm oil, won the RSPO . . .

During the cooler months, African penguins mostly focus on nesting and eating. As daylight hours decrease, they naturally pair up and settle in for snuggle season. While penguins don’t technically mate for life, they are monogamous and typically stay with the same partner during breeding season. The sixteen ‘flockstars’ at CMZoo have been together since . . .