Latest Denver Zoo Stories

The Denver Zoo says it will spend $50 million on an Asian Tropics area to house elephants and other endangered species. Construction is to start next year, the Rocky Mountain News reported. When completed, the exhibit will have five habitat areas and room for 12 elephants. The zoo, like others in the United States, is under pressure to improve the living conditions of its elephants or move them elsewhere. Some critics, such as Marc Bekoff, a former biology professor at the University of...

By Penny Parker It would be tough to say which gubernatorial offspring are better looking: the Owenses or the Ritters. "That's a close call," said former Gov. Bill Owens during Do at the Zoo, the annual food fest at the Denver Zoo, which this year benefited Asian Tropics, a 10-acre exhibit devoted to endangered Asian species. "But I know who the better-looking governor is.""And who would that be?" I teased. "Ah, don't make me state the obvious," Owens joked back. He was "doing the Do" with...

By LOUISE CHU SAN FRANCISCO - Investigators trying to determine how a tiger escaped its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo - killing one visitor and mauling two others on Christmas - planned a thorough sweep of the zoo grounds Wednesday to look for clues. Authorities did not believe more people were attacked, but they wanted to inspect the area in the daylight. Zoo officials were still uncertain how long the Siberian tiger, the same one that mauled a zookeeper almost one year earlier, had...

DENVER -- A zookeeper who was fatally attacked by a jaguar had violated the rules by opening the door to the animal's cage, zoo officials said Tuesday. Denver Zoo Vice President Craig Piper said the February death of Ashlee Pfaff was caused by "human error.""Our investigation shows Ashlee did not follow established safety protocols on the day of the accident," Piper said.He called her death a "true tragedy."Pfaff, 27, was killed in February when a 140-pound...

DENVER (AP) - The Denver Zoo has a newly hatched Andean condor, only the second condor to hatch at a zoo anywhere in the world over the past year, zoo officials said Thursday.The Denver condor, a male, hatched May 13. He and his parents are the zoo's only condors.Andean condors are an endangered species and came close to extinction in the 1970s, the zoo said. There are estimated to be only a few thousand of the giant birds in the wild, while 74 live in captivity in North America.When Denver's...