Immersive exhibit with tree kangaroos, red pandas coming to Seattle [The Seattle Times]

May 5—A two-story canopy path lined with treetops where endangered Matschie's tree kangaroos and red pandas will make their home is coming to Seattle.

But you'll have to wait until 2026 to explore the immersive forest at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Officials broke ground Thursday for the exhibit that will also feature a habitat gallery housing keas, forest reptiles and amphibians.

The Forest Trailhead Exhibit, at its core, will allow zoogoers to see up close how their everyday decisions affect endangered species, with the hope they leave inspired to take action and support conservation efforts, said Anders Brown, chair of the zoo's board of directors.

"It's going to remove barriers between humans and animals, and open up the extraordinary, yet quite often hidden, work of our animal care teams," he said.

The initial phase of design and site development is expected to be completed by September and construction is set to begin next year. When the exhibit opens in 2026, it will be the first time in about a decade that the public will get the chance to get close to a tree kangaroo at Woodland Park Zoo.

The exhibit will take over the building that formerly housed the Day and Nights exhibits, which closed in 2016 after a fire led to the massive evacuation of about 200 animals, including tortoises, lizards, amphibians and snakes.

Sixty-eight percent of the estimated $35 million cost for exhibit has been raised. The exhibit, designed by Seattle-based LMN Architects, is partly funded by the insurance settlement from the extensive fire damage, $19.5 million in Forest For All campaign contributions and $8.3 million from donations.

According to Nancy Pellegrino, former zoo board chair, the new exhibit will be the greenest and most sustainable space in the zoo, as officials plan to recycle 90% of the previous exhibit. Aside from the canopy path, the exhibit will feature a pavilion along with educational materials to inform people about conservation efforts and the communities leading them.

The exhibit, like many others at Woodland Park, aims to build an empathic relationship between people and animals, as well as a sense of coexistence with nature, President and CEO Alejandro Grajal said.

The name was chosen because it stands as the zoo's trailhead, and a "trailhead" to its future, he said.

It will shine a light on Indigenous-led conservation efforts, as it will highlight village communities in Papua New Guinea — the real stewards of tree kangaroo conservation, said Lisa Dabek, senior director of the zoo's Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program, which she founded in 1996.

"I believe in my heart that zoos play a really special role in biodiversity and community-led conservation," Dabek said.

The vision for the initiative arose after Grajal and Dabek visited Papua New Guinea.

Matschie's tree kangaroos only live on the Huon Peninsula of northeastern Papua New Guinea, with an estimated wild population of less than 2,500, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.

Logging, unsustainable mining practices and exploration are destroying the habitat of the animals, which play an important role in the culture and diet of the Indigenous people in the region.

Woodland Park's existing Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program works with local communities in rural Papua New Guinea to protect the folivorous endangered animals and their home. The program helped establish the country's first and, to date, only nationally recognized conservation area.

Red pandas, native to Nepal, Northern Myanmar and Central China, are endangered due to deforestation, among other human caused threats. The IUCN Red List endangered species classification considers them facing "a very high risk of extinction in the wild."

Hilary Franz, state commissioner of public lands, spoke Thursday about the importance of preserving forest lands.

"Healthy forests help us tackle climate change and strengthen communities," Franz said in a news release shared by Woodland Park. "The future of forests is inextricably linked to ours."

For the first time, the state forest land is down to less than 50%, Franz said. From increased wildfires to the more than 2 million acres of forest land that is dead or dying, the challenges are huge, she said, describing plans to restore 1.25 million acres of forest in Central and Eastern Washington by 2037.

"But if we are not raising the next generation to care about it and to experience and understand it. ... all the work we do, all the investments, all the policies will be for naught," she said.

During the pandemic it became crystal-clear how important nature is for our mental and physical health, Grajal added.

The idea of creating forest as a theme in this exhibit, and how critical forests are to the well-being of humans, animals and habitats, couldn't be more central to what Woodland Park does, he said.

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