Springtime in Colorado also means time to get your garden growing!

Need a few plants to fill in holes or interested in creating an all new garden this year? Frank Haas, CMZ’s Horticulture Curator, shares three key factors to consider when picking plants.

-          Hardiness – A plant is deemed hardy if it can survive the cold we have in the winter and come back the following spring. If you want plants to come back year after year, select plants rated to do well in your hardiness zone. Colorado Springs is rated Zone 5, whereas slightly higher (and thus colder) elevations west of the city would more likely be rated as Zone 4. 

-          Water requirements – Group plants with similar water requirements in the same planting area. It is often easiest to place plants with the highest water needs closest to the house, where you have ready access to a hose, and place plants with lower water requirements farther away. If you group plants by their water needs, you'll not only save water, but also make it easy to keep your plants happy.

 

-          Sun or shade – While selecting plants for your garden, take into consideration how much sun or shade the plant needs to thrive. While many plants can withstand some variation, too much sun can scorch the leaves of shade-loving plants and too much shade will cause sun-loving plants to go into decline.

The zoo's Annual Plant Sale website is a great resource for growing information. Click here to learn more at https://store.cmzoo.org/SearchResults.asp?Cat=109 

Wolf Comics

The comics below were made by 4th grade students at Tollgate Elementary, who visited the zoo for a Wild Night program.  Back at school, they made these comics to show what they learned about wolves and the reintroduction of the grey wolf.  Comics were reviewed by zoo staff and we chose winners based on the following criteria:

correct conservation messaging specific to wolves

neatness/readability

creativity of design

Winners received tickets to the zoo. Thanks for these amazing drawings! 

1st Place - Anaja Buttler - "The Wolves are Back"

2nd Place - Alan - "Yellowstone's Wolves"

3rd Place - "The Crazy Wolf Killers"

Runner Up - Rachael - "Ranger Jake's Big Mistake"

The Hidden World of African Rift Valley

Abyssinian Ground Hornbill - Jekyll

Our female Abyssinian ground hornbill, Jekyll, used to be very shy and nervous when she first came to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in 2007. She was nothing like Petrie, who we introduced you to last week! She soon became more confident and comfortable around her keepers, and now is a star in our Wings of Africa Bird Show!

Zookeepers are training Jekyll a “retrieve” behavior to add to the foraging behaviors she already knows and performs for the bird show, like flipping a rock to find food or sifting through leaf litter where she finds a fake snake and then shakes it to “kill” it.

Watch the video clip below of a recent training session with Jekyll.
 As the training progresses, keepers will switch out the orange dog toy you see Jekyll carrying in the video for a fake rubber snake. She will be trained to take the snake back to a second keeper (who is located “offstage”) and place it into the black tub for a treat as part of the bird show. This will allow keepers to call her out of the bird yard after her role in the show is finished.

Come learn how handy ground hornbills’ bills are for foraging and see how Jekyll does with her new behavior in African Rift Valley at our Wings of Africa Bird Show at 1:00pm daily starting Memorial Day.

Coming up in the next blog in the series, we’ll meet a docile, small African creature with LOTS of legs!

Exercise Improves Mental Health

The “Run to the Shrine” is one of many local events AspenPointe sponsors in its efforts to promote a holistic approach to health and wellness. This summer, AspenPointe was also the volunteer sponsor for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge that kick-started in Colorado Springs in August.

“We at AspenPointe know how important it is to exercise every day, at least ten minutes," said AspenPointe Health Services program manager Penny Frank. "It helps your mind and spirit and helps you achieve your best."

A recent report in Time Magazine states, “That physical activity is crucial to good health – both mental and physical – is nothing new. As early as the 1970s and '80s, observational studies showed that Americans who exercised were not only less likely to be depressed than those who did not but also less likely to become depressed in the future.”

The article sites a 1999 Duke University trial where researchers demonstrated that depressed adults who participated in an aerobic-exercise plan improved as much as those treated with Zoloft.

Numerous other trials have since repeated these results, showing that patients who follow aerobic-exercise regimens see improvement in their depression comparable to that of those treated with medication.

“The trials all seem to point in the same direction: exercise boosts mood. It not only relieves depressive symptoms but also appears to prevent them from recurring,” the article said.

AspenPointe continues to move toward helping clients achieve the best outcomes through a whole-person focus. Health care providers understand with greater clarity that emotional, physical and mental well-being are much more intricately connected than previously thought.

“Being physically fit is part of being well and that’s why we encourage our staff and our clients to eat better and exercise,” said AspenPointe President & CEO Morris L. Roth. “We think wellness also encompasses things like emotional balance, financial stability, career satisfaction, spirituality and social connectedness, to name a few.”

So we hope to see you May 19 at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s “Run to the Shrine.” It’s good for your health.

-Adrienne Anderson

Communications Specialist, AspenPointe

The Hidden World of African Rift Valley

Abyssinian Ground Hornbill

Meet Petrie, our handsome male Abyssinian ground hornbill. Petrie spent a lot of time with zookeepers when he was a chick and because of that, and he now seems to forget he is a hornbill at times! He likes to “share” his food with us, his current keepers, like hornbills do for each other as a pair bonding exercise. He also likes to hang out with us to watch what we do. We have to be extra careful not to accidentally leave scrub brushes or hose nozzles too close to his enclosure as his long bill is especially handy for snatching shiny objects, which he then carries around like a treasure! In the wilds of East Africa, a hornbill’s bill is used to forage for food, flipping over rocks and sifting thru leaf litter looking for insects and small vertebrates.

Come see Petrie fly over the giraffe exhibit in African Rift Valley at our Wings of Africa Bird Show at 1pm daily starting on Memorial Day.

Next time we will introduce you to our beautiful female Abyssinian ground hornbill who also stars in our bird show.

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 10!

In 1969, Senator Gaylord Nelson took a political stance on the effects of environmental pollution by helping organize the first ever “Environmental Teach-In”, held on April 22, 1970. Since then, Earth Day has blossomed into a full month of environmental awareness activities. In 1990, the Earth Day concept went international with 200 million people in over 140 nations participating. Earth Day involvement continues to grow, with over 1 billion people involved in awareness activities today.  

We participate in Earth Month every year and incorporate all of its action steps into our daily zoo routines. Below are 10 simple tips you can integrate into your daily routine to minimize the negative impact on the environment.

1.        Use scrap paper for informal notes to yourself and others.

2.        Start an office recycling program for office and computer paper, cardboard, etc.

3.        If you buy disposable items, buy compostable products rather than plastics or Styrofoam.

4.        When you shop, use one big sack instead of collecting several small ones, or better yet, take your own totes with you.

5.        Turn your car off if you are stopping for more than one minute to avoid wasting gas and polluting our air.

6.        Recycle your vehicle’s and recreational vehicle’s engine oil and battery.

7.        Turn down the heat and turn off the water heater before you leave home for vacation.

8.        When you’re on vacation, hang your towels back on the rack to be used another day.

9.        Compost your food waste. Composting, especially with worms, is an easy and fun project that kids can get excited about.

10.     Take only photographs and leave only footprints when you explore.

"But now, says the Once-ler, Now that you´re here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." – Dr. Seuss

 *Sourced - History.com