News

For Asian elephant keepers, working among the giants of the animal kingdom entails training, enriching and caring for the Zoo's multi-generational herd, as well as contributing to research and educating visitors about the conservation of this endangered species.

Behavior can tell the giant panda team quite a bit about the pandas, but the behaviors they exhibit are only half the story. When it comes to predicting when Mei Xiang will give birth, or when she is in the final stages of a pseudopregnancy, scientists rely on a few different factors. They monitor...

Ever since 42-year-old Asian elephant Kamala arrived at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in May 2014, keeper Amanda Bobyack has helped her settle into her habitat. Part of that adjustment included learning husbandry and medical training behaviors that help Bobyack, her fellow keepers and the vet team...

You can increase your impact on the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute’s mission by becoming a Council member. Membership at the Council level enables our science research to reach further and helps our Zoo’s exhibits to shine even brighter.

The Kirtland's warbler is an endangered migratory songbird that breeds almost exclusively in Michigan and winters primarily in the Bahamas. The species nests on the ground and will only breed in young Jack Pine forests. Decades of fire suppression prevented the formation of new breeding habitat for...

As the world prepares to celebrate Global Tiger Day this Saturday, July 29, Great Cats keepers have some big news to share about the 2-week-old Sumatran tiger cub in their care: it appears to be a boy!

See the beginning of a kiwi egg hatching in this behind-the-scenes Facebook Live at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute!

Keepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo are mourning the loss of Minnesota, a Przewalski’s horse who was humanely euthanized yesterday morning.

Kids’ Farm keepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo are mourning the loss of Tulip, a 13-year-old Holstein cow who was humanely euthanized July 24.

Animal keepers at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute are hand-raising a dama gazelle calf. The male calf was born July 4.

Two litters of red panda cubs were born at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute last month within days of each other.

Activity at the giant panda habitat has slowed since the flurry of breeding season in May. Keepers, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists and veterinarians were monitoring Mei Xiang very closely to determine when she would ovulate. Her chance to conceive a cub arrived May 25. Now...

On July 11, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center scientist Autumn-Lynn Harrison set out to deploy GPS tags on the Chesapeake Bay’s brown pelicans to track their migrations and better understand the iconic birds.

About 100 kilometers south of Lima on the coast of Peru, an expansive community of marine invertebrates, fish and seabirds has taken up residency in a seemingly unlikely place: in the hard-bottom space created by a barrier, called a breakwater, protecting South America’s first Liquefied Natural Gas...

A new cryopreservation study has sweeping implications for wildlife conservation and human health. In a paper published July 13 in ACS Nano, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and University of Minnesota provide the first-ever reproducible evidence for the successful cryopreservation of...

In June, SCBI scientists and partners fitted the ossicones of 11 reticulated giraffes with GPS collars that send hourly data to researchers via satellite.

The island scrub-jay, a songbird endemic to Santa Cruz Island off the coast of southern California, has made headlines in recent years for bucking evolutionary and biological trends—and is at it again this year.

In a shell of a paternity test story, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) scientists found that male desert tortoises that had been relocated from a threatened habitat to a new nearby home are reproducing at a much, much lower rate than resident males. Genetic paternity testing of 92...

Great Cats keepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo are celebrating the birth of a Sumatran tiger, a critically endangered species. The cub’s mother, 8-year-old Damai, gave birth at 4:17 p.m. on July 11.

An adult female red panda and an adult female dama gazelle died at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute during the past week. Both deaths were the result of natural causes.

On June 8, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute hosted 27 Circle of Life Society donors for an exclusive donor recognition event at the Zoo’s Research Hill—home to the Center for Conservation Genomics, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and Department of Wildlife Health...

In January, Tom Akre, former director of Virginia Working Landscapes (VWL), was appointed to the new position of Working Landscapes and Seascapes Scholar.

Bornean orangutan infant Redd is 9 months old! Although he still sticks close to mom, Batang, and she keeps a watchful eye on him, he is very active and seems to enjoy exploring his surroundings.

Shell-ebration is in order for the Reptile Discovery Center, where two critically endangered Bourret’s box turtles hatched for the first time in the Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s history. This conservation success was more than a decade in the making for animal keeper Lauren Augustine, who manages...

Fitted with a GPS device the weight of a paperclip, a gray catbird in the Washington, D.C., area flies south, unaware that the device records its every move. That data is key for conservation biologists, like Brandt Ryder of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, who aim to understand the threats...