Our not-so-tiny penguin chick has a name! Meet Sparrow. Keepers chose the name to go along with Captain and Pearl’s names. Captain, Pearl and Sparrow are all names related to the Pirates of the Caribbean films, where the swashbuckling Captain Jack Sparrow commands the pirate ship, the Black Pearl. Since hatching on April 8, 2025, Sparrow has been growing fast — exploring the surroundings, developing juvenile plumage and learning to preen feathers.
Sparrow recently hit a big milestone: swimming! The chick is quickly growing in juvenile plumage, which is the first set of waterproof feathers that replaces the soft down chicks have before they fledge.
From belly-flop dives into the water and carrying items to the nest, to eating regurgitated fish from Captain and Pearl and napping on a tiny rock nearby the nest, Sparrow is stealing hearts in Water’s Edge: Africa.
Help us wish Ouray a happy 32nd birthday! The Fourth of July isn’t just America’s birthday—it’s also Ouray the bald eagle’s designated hatchday!
Ouray is a bald eagle, but she’s also a ‘golden eagle’ because she’s well into her golden years. The median life expectancy of a bald eagle in human care is 16 years, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums! We don’t know Ouray’s exact age or hatchday because she came to us after being injured in the wild. Bald eagles are federally protected and illegal to own for falconry purposes in the United States. However, some organizations, like CMZoo, have special permits to care for bald eagles that cannot be released back into the wild, like Ouray. Ouray came to CMZoo in March 2006, from our friends at Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance, who took her in after a wing injury left her unable to fly in 2002.
For 18 years, her signature calls have been like a soundtrack for CMZoo guests and staff. You can visit Ouray in Rocky Mountain Wild. Stay a while to see if she’ll grace you with a call during your next trip to CMZoo!
In May, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s 12-year-old okapi, Bahati [buh-HAH-tee], got a new home – and a new roommate – in CMZoo’s tapir yard.
Seeing Bahati in a new and prominent location in the Zoo, visitors have better-than-ever visibility of the rare and mystical creature, who often prompts the question – “Did they breed a zebra and a horse?”
With his black-and-white striped legs and velvety dark brown coat, it’s easy to see why people might ask that. But, Bahati is an okapi, a species all its own, known to be native to only one place in the world: rainforests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Africa.
“I wonder if our guests know how rare it is to see an okapi,” Rick Hester, CMZoo’s director of animal care and wellbeing, says. “I have met wild okapi researchers and conservationists who have dedicated their lives to this animal, and have never seen one in person. We’re lucky Bahati lives here.”
Because he was born and raised in human care, Bahati’s behaviors are quite different from his wild counterparts. He’s eager to approach his keepers and guests, and he’s always been inquisitive about his former neighbors, the giraffe herd and vultures.
Bahati has a reputation for being curious about giraffe calves, and he would often stretch his neck over his rock barrier to sniff a new calf, so he has a history of being calm and confident around other animals.
“We can’t say ‘all’ okapis would do well sharing space with another animal, but we think Bahati, as an individual, will do well with Mochi, our mild-mannered mountain tapir,” Rick says
.
For his first day in the tapir yard, Bahati got the entire space. His care team wanted him to explore, make his mark and have maximum space to settle in. He did incredibly well, and his team set him up for success by planting a new willow tree and hanging lots of tree branches throughout the yard, which kept him engaged throughout the day.
By the end of the day, Bahati had explored nearly everything to his heart’s content. But, one new sound and smell particularly caught his curiosity. Bahati wanted to see Mochi.
Mochi, CMZoo’s mountain tapir, is one of only three mountain tapirs in the U.S. The other two live at LA Zoo, where Mochi lived before moving back to CMZoo in 2023. They’re native to mountainous regions in Ecuador, Peru and Columbia. Mochi also prompts a question from unfamiliar onlookers. “Is that a cross between a bear and an anteater?”
Mountain tapirs have wooly black coats, hooved toes, the body shape of a large boar and long and extremely dexterous snouts. Mochi, who was also raised in human care, is extremely outgoing. He is one of the few animals of his size (around 370 pounds) at the Zoo that are safe to share space with. When staff share space with Mochi, he usually approaches them for scratches, which they happily deliver. Scratch Mochi just right and he gets so relaxed that he usually topples over onto his side, providing the best belly-rub angles.
Okapis and mountain tapirs are not typically found in groups in the wild, and these two individuals have had their own spaces for many years. There are separate doors leading to separate dens behind the tapir yard. On Bahati’s first day in the tapir yard, Mochi was in his den and Bahati had access to the full yard and his den – separated by a den between the two boys.
At the end of the first day, Bahati’s care team says Bahati stood in the den with his ears straight forward, making little ‘chuffs’ towards Mochi. His care team hadn’t heard Bahati vocalize before, and based on the rest of his behavior, he seemed comfortable and eager to see what he was hearing and smelling. Mochi was making vocalizations, which sounded like little chirps, in Bahati’s direction, and standing at the end of his den closest to Bahati, too.
“Seeing how comfortable and curious they were with each other’s presence, we decided to accelerate their timeline, and let Mochi into the den next to Bahati,” Rick says. “Mochi reached his long snout farther than I’ve ever seen, and the two touched noses through the metal fence in between them. They seemed calm, and overall curious.”
Their nose-touch greetings continued through the night, and the two slept as next-door neighbors – all signs of comfortable behavior. The next day, the team constructed a temporary fence to split the yard, so both animals could go outside and inside as they chose. Mochi, who is about four feet shorter than Bahati, has been seen climbing up onto a rock near the fence to get closer to Bahati’s eye level. The two continue to smell each other and touch noses through the fence.
Mochi, ever cool as a cucumber, settled back into his routine rather quickly, checking in with Bahati periodically. Bahati can’t get enough of Mochi, and follows his every move. If Mochi wants to go outside, Bahati goes outside. When Mochi goes into the den, Bahati usually follows into his side of the den.
Mochi might have a good memory, and he may remember having okapis as neighbors when he lived at CMZoo previously, from 2000 to 2014. Or, he may be ultimately confident and curious in his golden years. Mochi is 26 years old, which is considered quite old for a mountain tapir. Cofan and Carlotta, CMZoo’s two previous mountain tapirs, lived to be 19 and 26, respectively.
Bahati’s care team and Zoo leadership considered every option for Bahati’s best welfare – including finding him a home at another accredited organization. Ultimately, they decided the tapir yard at CMZoo – with plenty of shade and vegetation for the rainforest-native species – was Bahati’s best option.
“We are getting better and better at using both the natural history of the species and the behavior of the individual in front of us to inform our care,” Rick says. “Our goal is to provide animals with environments that are rich with the things that matter most to them.”
Bahati’s and Mochi’s care team will continue to monitor their behaviors closely, and make adjustments to their environment based on their needs. There’s no rush, and the future goal is to introduce the two animals without a barrier between them, so they both have full access to the yard.
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 by CMZoo’s supporters focus on preventing deforestation through global consumer empowerment, connecting and restoring wild orangutan habitats, and rescuing and rehabilitating displaced wild orangutans.
In 2021, CMZoo members voted in the annual Members-Only Conservation Vote to send $20,000 to support Hutan’s work to restore a wildlife corridor. In support of two established organizations working to save species in Southeast Asia, the funds helped the Hutan organization provide tools and funds to local women reforesting the Genting Wildlife Corridor, in Borneo. It also helped the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) repair orangutan rehabilitation islands damaged by a devastating flood.
The Hutan corridor is an important animal ‘wildway’ that will connect rainforest with a wildlife sanctuary potentially used by hundreds of species in the area, like orangutans and Asian forest elephants. The BOSF grant provides emergency funds to reopen islands used for orangutan housing and forest school prior to release.
In addition to funds raised through a portion of every Zoo membership, every visitor to the Zoo is making a direct contribution to conservation, through CMZoo’s Quarters for Conservation program (Q4C). Each Zoo guest receives three ‘quarter’ tokens representing the 75-cent Q4C allocation from their admission fee. They can then show support for the legacy projects they love by placing their tokens in the corresponding slots in the Q4C kiosks in the Zoo’s admissions area. Orangutans are one of CMZoo’s legacy beneficiary species, receiving support since Q4C was established in 2008.
CMZoo has been a leader in sustainable palm oil advocacy for more than 15 years, encouraging numerous zoos and companies to join the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) with increasing success. In 2014, CMZoo created a free mobile app to educate consumers in the U.S. and Canada. By 2022, more than 160,000 verified users were making better shopping choices with CMZoo’s palm oil shopping app. In 2023, that app design, database and user experience served as the foundation to launch a free global app, called PalmOil Scan, under the direction of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), and in partnership with several zoos around the world.
Now, PalmOil Scan is available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, The United Kingdom and Singapore. The app has the potential to reach millions more people around the world.
Companies that continue to use unsustainable palm oil in their products need to see that consumers have the tools and knowledge to find out whether they value the habitats that so many endangered species depend on. Sustainable palm oil production is possible, and CMZoo’s work on sustainable palm oil advocacy, including the support on PalmOil Scan, gives consumers the power to hold companies to a higher standard.
Download PalmOil Scan for free in the Apple Store or on Google Play. To learn more about orangutan conservation and palm oil, visit cmzoo.org/palmoil.
Two of our skunks recently had kits! Isabel and Padfoot are each raising a litter of seven baby skunks. That’s fourteen tiny bundles of cuteness keeping their paws full. The two litters arrived exactly two weeks apart. The babies are often busy nursing, sleeping and curiously nuzzling one another. Isabel, Padfoot, and all the little ones appear to be doing well. It won’t be long before these kits are full of energy and exploring their home in The Loft. Until then, the best time to see them is during our skunk training demonstrations in The Loft. The demonstrations take place on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
These skunks will head to other AZA zoos when they’re mature and independent in the coming months. At their new homes, they’ll represent their wild counterparts and help even more people learn to love and appreciate skunks.
Our penguin chick isn’t so tiny anymore! Hatched on April 8, this little one is already nearing the two-month mark, and growing fast! It still lives in the nest box with Captain and Pearl, and it already weighs about 5 pounds, nearly the size of an adult African penguin. Keepers check on the chick daily and do regular weigh-ins to track its progress. The chick is very alert and loves to chirp loudly to make sure Captain, Pearl and everyone else in the penguin building knows when it’s time for a snack. Stay tuned for more penguin chick updates on social media!
Three sets of fuzzy ears and wide, curious eyes recently joined the CMZoo family! These tiny ring-tailed lemur babies are already turning heads with their inquisitive expressions and snuggles on Allagash.
While they’re still nursing, they’re also beginning to explore some solid foods. The pups cling tightly to Allagash but are starting to show signs of independence. Allagash’s adult daughter, Anja, seems especially curious about the little ones and has even started helping with grooming duties.
According to the Lemur Conservation Foundation, lemurs are among the most threatened groups of mammals. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that more than 95 percent of lemurs face extinction in the next 20 years. Ring-tailed lemurs are endangered, according to the IUCN. Hercules has had breeding recommendations with Allagash and Rogue as part of the ring-tailed lemur Species Survival Plan, managed cooperatively by members of Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited facilities, like CMZoo.
Guests can see the babies right away, on Lemur Island in the hippo area, in Water’s Edge Africa!
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. From 2015 to 2025, the program has provided $825,000 of membership revenue to support field conservation worldwide.
“Our members make a big impact for wildlife and wild places,” Ashley Cioppa, CMZoo membership manager, says. “Our members’ annual investment in their Zoo memberships directly supports animals here in Colorado and all around the world. Plus, they give our staff the opportunity to reach more niche organizations and projects that support their conservation passions. Thank you, members!”
Each year, CMZoo membership revenue contributes a total of $100,000 to conservation in two ways:
$25,000 to the Quarters for Conservation program, which in total contributes a million dollars on average every 18 months to CMZoo’s legacy conservation partners.
$75,000 to projects voted for by CMZoo members through this annual vote.
This year’s Members-Only Conservation Vote top-ranked projects to fully fund are:
1) FOSTER, RAISE, AND RELEASE AFRICAN PENGUINS – $38,271
Member funding will provide an incubator, veterinary care and rehabilitation support for wild African penguin chicks and adults. African penguins, found mainly in South Africa and Namibia, face significant threats from overfishing, oil spills and disease outbreaks. As a result, penguin parents are abandoning their chicks due to lack of food and other weather-related factors. The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB )will use these funds to rescue abandoned penguin eggs, chicks and adults needing intervention and rehabilitation at their South Africa facility. The goal is to release as many rescued penguins as possible back into the wild to bolster the rapidly declining African penguin population.
2) SUPPORT LEADERSHIP TRAINING FOR KENYAN WOMEN CONSERVATIONISTS AND RESTORE HABITAT FOR AFRICAN LIONS – $17,000
Support will empower Samburu (a region in Northern Kenya) women to improve their community’s livelihoods and help protect lions. Ewaso Lions implements several programs to help protect lions. One of these programs is The Mama Simbas (which means “Mothers of Lions”). The group consists of Samburu women trained to help alleviate human- wildlife conflicts, which typically occur between farmers and predators that may threaten local livestock. Ewaso Lions will use these funds to provide leadership training to the women of The Mama Simbas program. This training will give the women new tools to help shift attitudes towards predators, allowing Kenyan communities to coexist more easily and efficiently with wild carnivores. Funds will also support the restoration of grassland habitat.
3) PROTECT EGYPTIAN TORTOISES THROUGH COMMUNITY CONSERVATION IN EGYPT- $19,729
Member support will fund local community guards and provide tracking tags to protect Egyptian tortoises. Wild turtles and tortoises are facing a worldwide extinction crisis. The Egyptian tortoise faces severe threats from habitat destruction due to farming and poaching for the pet trade. The Turtle Survival Alliance will use funds to deploy tracking tags to gather data and gain an understanding of how tortoises interact with each other and their environment, as well as population dynamics. Community guards will help address immediate threats to the species by physically protecting the most vital tortoise populations and their habitat.
With Mother’s Day around the corner, staff at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo are reflecting on one mother-daughter relationship that stands out: Bornean orangutans, Hadiah [huh-DEE-uh] and Ember.
Bornean orangutan, Ember
“They’re incredibly close,” Ashton Asbury, animal keeper in Primate World, says. “Great apes are intelligent and complex beings, and we see different parenting types in each of them. Hadiah, as a mom to her only child, Ember, is a supportive, patient and rose-colored-glasses kind of mom.”
Ember is known for her in-your-face playfulness and high-energy approach to life. Her mom sometimes inadvertently finds herself in the path of her rambunctious nature, but she doesn’t seem to mind. After being the recipient of a rogue toy to the head, Hadiah has been seen handing the toy back to Ember patiently, and returning to her own activity without skipping a beat.
Often that activity is people watching.
“Hadiah has connections with so many visitors and staff because she’s truly curious and recognizes people who return to see her,” Ashton says. “She’s got great facial recognition, and she’ll play with people through the glass. If she’s ever rolled over onto her back or folded her arms over her head to one side and looked at you upside down, she’s playing with you. She does that with her favorite humans and new guests who catch her eye.”
Orangutans are mostly solitary as adults, unless they are interacting for breeding or they have young with them, and many orangutan mothers are ready for their offspring to ‘spring off’ by around age seven or eight. Thirty-seven-year-old Hadiah is content with her daughter-turned-bestie, who is ten years old.
“These two still nest together every night,” Ashton says. “They eat together and play. It’s rare to see that kind of relationship in orangutans, when offspring are as old as Ember, and it really speaks to the respect and affection they have for each other.”
On the rare occasion that confident Ember feels unsure about something new, she runs to Hadiah, grabs her arms and wraps them around her. Despite their similar size, Hadiah occasionally still carries Ember.
“Their dynamic can be playful and outgoing, but also so patient and calm,” Izzy Dones, animal keeper in Primate World, says. “They’re usually together, but Ember and Hadiah also enjoy doing things separately sometimes. They’re both confident training and exploring separately, but, any time Hadiah is training with us, we’re ready with an activity for Ember nearby, because she’s going to want to do whatever Mom is doing.”
Hadiah grew up at the Zoo and was close with her own mother, Sabtu, until she passed away, in 2006. That strong family foundation seems to have shaped Hadiah’s parenting style.
“At least partly because of Hadiah’s unwavering support, Ember is one of the most confident and intelligent orangutans we’ve seen,” Izzy says. “She’s outgoing and curious about staff and guests, just like Hadiah, and she picks up training fast. She’s always pushing boundaries in a way that helps her grow, but still stays very close to Hadiah.”
Ember’s favorite enrichment activities include wearing fabric on her head, mimicking a behavior observed in wild orangutans who use leaves for shelter, like a hat or umbrella. She’s also a skilled problem-solver who enjoys dismantling enrichment items and ‘trading them’ through the mesh for snacks from keepers. She has learned that she gets one snack for every item she passes through the mesh, so instead of passing an assembled puzzle feeder, she takes it apart into several pieces – earning several snacks.
“Ember is really sharp,” Izzy says.
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Hadiah participates in cooperative care, like brushing and water-flossing her teeth, nail trims, target training, voluntary injection, abdominal ultrasound, scale training, ear and eye presentations, and more. Of course, through modeling behaviors learned by watching Mom, Ember is also a whiz at most of these, too.
Not to be outdone by her vivacious daughter, Hadiah is learning new climbing behaviors, and her fascination with guests is building her confidence and strength to climb high in the orangutan yard.
“She likes to climb down like a sloth, and because she’s so outgoing, she seems to enjoy the guests’ reactions,” Izzy says. “She’ll hear guests ‘oohing’ at her while she climbs, and will stop and look over at them with excitement.”
When guests aren’t ‘oohing’ at her, she calls them over by knocking on the glass to get their attention. Visitors usually get the hint, and Hadiah presents opportunities to play, or brings a blanket over to the glass to make a nest to rest near them.
Bornean orangutan, Hadiah
Their “perfect day” includes novel training sessions, new spaces to explore and enrichment items like ice treats, bubbles, coconuts and even painting sessions. Hadiah is especially thoughtful with her artwork, while Ember seems to embrace the Jackson Pollock painting style.
As members of a critically endangered species, Hadiah and Ember play an important role in orangutan conservation.
“Most people won’t get the chance to see an orangutan in the wild,” Izzy says. “But when they meet Hadiah and Ember, they connect. They stop, they watch, and they feel seen by an animal. That connection makes all the difference.”
Every visit to CMZoo helps fund international efforts to save wild orangutan habitats, through the Zoo’s Quarters for Conservation (Q4C) program. “Orangu-fans” can save the rainforests from the comfort of their smartphone with a free global mobile app called PalmOil Scan.
Palm oil is an edible oil sourced in about half of consumer products. Unsustainable palm oil production results in deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia – the only places where critically endangered orangutans live in the wild. Although the majority of palm oil production is in Southeast Asia, it has also expanded to other tropical areas, which means more animal species could lose the habitats they need to survive.
When produced sustainably, palm oil is four to ten times more productive than any other edible oil. Using PalmOil Scan, conscientious consumers can scan the barcodes on tens of thousands of products in the app’s extensive database (which is being updated and expanded continually) to see if they are produced by a company that has committed to sourcing sustainable palm oil. By choosing products made by companies that have committed to sustainable palm oil, consumers can show companies that they’re armed with the information they need to demand action for wildlife conservation.
Developed under the direction of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums and regionally managed by CMZoo, in the U.S. and Canada. The PalmOil Scan is a global app that can also be downloaded in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, which are all managed by other partner zoos. The free app can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play. Orangutan enthusiasts can learn more about palm oil, and download the free app before their next shopping trip, at cmzoo.org/palmoil.
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 one is an important ambassador for African penguins.
In 2024, African penguins were officially uplisted to ‘critically endangered’ on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, with the number of wild breeding pairs falling below 10,000. If current trends continue, these charismatic birds could be extinct in the wild by 2035.
Since 2010, CMZoo guests and members have contributed more than $159,675 to Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) in support of African penguin conservation. In 2020, the Zoo deepened its commitment by joining AZA SAFE (Saving Animals From Extinction) African Penguin, a collaborative program supported by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Every visit to CMZoo is conservation in action. Guests visiting CMZoo can see African penguins up close, including this new chick, knowing their visit helps support a future for this species in the wild.
Keep an eye (and ear) out for the chick in the penguin building in Water’s Edge Africa. While it’s usually snuggled in the nest, you might see it wriggle out, or hear it peeping.
