NEWS RELEASES

The gorilla troop at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park is recovering following the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans, in several troop members earlier this month.

In keeping with the latest guidance set forth from the Governor’s Office, the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park will reopen to the public on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2021, ending an almost two-month-long closure that began December 7, 2020.

San Diego Zoo Global welcomed a new member to its executive leadership team this month: David Gillig has been named chief philanthropy officer of San Diego Zoo Global. In his new role, Gillig will lead the nonprofit conservation organization’s crucial fundraising efforts to support further growth of the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park, while also raising the bar on the organization’s commitment to support worldwide conservation efforts in service to the mission of saving endangered wildlife.

Members of the Gorilla Troop at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. On Wednesday, January 6, two of the gorillas began coughing. Given current circumstances, San Diego Zoo Global initiated the process of testing fecal samples from the gorillas for SARS-CoV-2 through the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System (CA HFS). 

Although the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park are closed to guests, the animals are still celebrating the holidays. Wildlife care specialists created holiday wreaths for the pygmy hippos and takins at the Zoo and for the elephants at the Safari Park. 

Although the Zoo is closed to guests, the animals are still celebrating the holidays. Today (Dec. 21, 2020), wildlife care specialists created holiday wreaths and gave them to Akobi and Mabel, pygmy hippos at the San Diego Zoo.

New information about thick-billed parrots, gathered using state-of-the-art technology, is likely to identify important steps to conserving this endangered species. In September, a team of biologists—including members from Organización Vida Silvestre A.C. (OVIS) in Mexico, the Arizona Fish and Game Department, World Parrot Trust and San Diego Zoo Global—worked together to place small transmitters on thick-billed parrots in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Teams of biologists and community scientists supported by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and San Diego Zoo Global are again sounding the alarm for the bright orange butterflies that are iconic images of Coastal California. 

A team of biologists—including members from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Endemic Environmental Services Inc., Citrus College and San Diego Zoo Global—worked together over the last couple of weeks to find and rescue the last remaining reproductively viable population of southwestern pond turtles (Actinemys pallida) in the San Gabriel Mountains.

In a study that has unprecedented implications to advance both medicine and biodiversity conservation, researchers have sequenced 131 new placental mammal genomes, bringing the worldwide total to more than 250.