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.