“All three giraffes traveled safely, and the moves went smoothly from start to finish,” the Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance . “…Our dedicated animal care team is closely monitoring everyone to help ensure an easy transition as they continue to settle in.”

Jasiri, a 5-year-old breeding bull, temporarily moved to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs in January to support conservation efforts for reticulated giraffes, according to the Denver Zoo.

Several female giraffes at the Colorado Springs zoo were recommended for breeding under the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ species survival plan, but Khalid — the zoo’s former breeding bull — died in 2025 at 17 years old, Denver officials said.

Species survival plans “ensure the sustainability of a healthy, genetically diverse, and demographically varied AZA population,” . Program officials monitor populations at AZA-accredited zoos and carefully match animals for breeding.

As of Wednesday, Jasiri had officially returned to the Denver Zoo. He was joined by Panya, an 8-year-old female giraffe from Cheyenne Mountain who arrived in Denver on a breeding recommendation, according to the Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance.

The move reunited Panya with her previous herdmate, BB, who was relocated from Cheyenne Mountain to Denver in 2022.

Jasiri and BB’s 1-year-old calf, Thorn, who was born at the Denver Zoo in March 2025, has been permanently moved to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to join the Colorado Springs herd, zoo officials said. Thorn was the .

“While these changes may feel bittersweet, they play a vital role in giraffe conservation … and moves like these are carefully planned with each individual’s well-being in mind,” . “We’re excited for what����ap ahead for our herds and for the continued impact these efforts will have on giraffe conservation for years to come.”

Pixar creators studied Ginger, formerly a resident of the in Colorado Springs, as part of their research for the beaver-centric film with an eco-friendly message.

Ginger retired to the big dam in the sky in 2022 when she was nearly 14, but her legacy endures. Stick around to the end of “Hoppers” and catch Ginger’s very own movie credit.

Ginger was the first rodent the Pixar team studied when making “Hoppers” — and you never forget your first beaver.

“We think about her often,” said John Cody Kim, Pixar’s story supervisor on “Hoppers.” “We talked about her every now and then, especially during production. ‘Remember Ginger?'”

“Hoppers” documents a young girl’s fight to save a treasured habitat from development by transferring her mind into a robotic beaver to communicate with the surrounding animals.

But “Hoppers” actually started out as a movie about penguins, Kim said — until Pixar executives said there were too many penguin movies already.

They needed to pick a new animal, one that was still cute and fluffy, Kim said, but had not yet had its big break on the silver screen.

Enter the industrious beaver.

Pixar creators take time to study the subjects of their films to portray them accurately. But the early days of “Hoppers” coincided with the early days of the pandemic, so travel and time spent face-to-fur were out of the question.

The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo was leaning into video content at the time, booking personalized video chat encounters with various animals, said Jenny Quinn, lead education keeper at the zoo.

Pixar creators reached out and asked if they could schedule a video chat with a beaver. Non-disclosure agreements were signed. The zoo was in.

Move over, Ginger Rogers. Ginger the beaver made a dam good leading lady.

She was a bit of a diva. Ginger required daily allergy medicines because she was allergic to most trees — not a great intolerance for a tree-chomping rodent. But she took her pill-stuffed banana like a champ, Quinn said.

“Ginger was pretty perfect,” Quinn said. “She was the epitome of a grumpy old lady who is sweet, but also does what she wants.”

In early 2021, Kim and a few members of his team hopped on a Zoom call with Quinn and Ginger.

“It was a little bit crazy,” Quinn said, recalling hovering over the beaver with a phone while animators several states away sketched Ginger’s movements and behaviors, and asked questions about the animal.

Ginger was a curvaceous gal. Kim likened her to “a waddling chicken nugget” and went on to advise animators stuck on a particular beaver pose to think of the animal as a loaf of bread or a potato.

“I remember seeing Ginger waddling around, dragging this branch behind her, and that was like a very visceral image for me,” Kim said.

When Ginger sat, Kim noted that her tail tucked forward between her legs like a little seat. That pose is modeled multiple times throughout the movie.

During the video call, Kim watched Ginger build dams in a casual, nonchalant fashion, almost as if she were absent-mindedly twirling her hair during a conversation. That behavior made it into the movie, too, Kim said, as animated beavers start to dam up random objects when they get frazzled.

“We got to learn so many great facts about beavers and observe so much about Ginger and her personality and the way she would behave,” Kim said.

Kim learned that beavers are a keystone species — an organism that holds an ecosystem together. That fact plays a pivotal role in the plot of “Hoppers” as the main character tries to lure beavers back to a habitat to save it.

Quinn hopes the movie makes viewers fall in love with beavers like Cheyenne Mountain Zoo visitors fell in love with Ginger. Visitors can pay their respects to Ginger by visiting her sister and niece, Acorn and Hashbrown, who now reside at the zoo.

“The biggest thing people should know is how much of a huge impact for good (that) beavers can have on the environment,” Quinn said. “They create homes for everyone else.”

Over the years, Quinn said the video call with Pixar and Ginger would pop into her mind, and she’d wonder whether it was all a beaver fever dream.

She was thrilled to finally see the and know that Ginger was a muse.

“It’s cool that Ginger did this interview five years ago, passed away four years ago, and now there is this resurgence of appreciation,” Quinn said. “We get to think about Ginger again and she’s inspired millions of people over her time at the zoo, either on social media, online, people visiting — and now, even after her passing, she’s still part of something that is helping people learn about beavers and learn to appreciate them, and leading to more education.”

Several of the female giraffes in Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s herd have been recommended for potential breeding under the ‘ (AZA) Giraffe Species Survival Plan, but Khalid, the zoo’s 17-year-old breeding bull, died last month, .

Jasiri, a reticulated giraffe at the Denver Zoo, will spend a few months at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for those breeding efforts, according to the organization.

“ are classified as Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species,” Denver zoo officials wrote on social media. “We’re proud to play a role in supporting this incredible species through collaborative conservation efforts like the (Species Survival Plan).”

Zoo officials did not specify how long Jasiri would stay at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but said he is expected to return to Denver later this year.

Species Survival Plans aim to ensure “a genetically diverse, demographically varied, and biologically sound population” at accredited zoos, according to the AZA. Program officials monitor populations and carefully match animals across AZA-accredited zoos for breeding.

The yet-to-be-named and Asha seem to be doing well, and the baby is hitting milestones including nursing and clinging to mom, zoo officials said Tuesday.

Asha appears to be bonding well with her baby, Primate World animal keeper Ashton Asbury said in a

“Asha is sitting and lying down with the baby and gently patting its back, which is really adorable,” Asbury said. “The baby hangs onto Asha while she’s moving around and she supports it with one hand. They’re bonding really well, and we have seen her licking the baby’s head and grooming it.”

This is Asha’s third baby and the first baby for dad Goma, who is also showing interest in the zoo’s newest addition.

“He seems to want to stick close to her and the baby,” Asbury continued. “I heard him making happy gorilla grumbles at them, and Asha is doing a good job of showing him the baby while keeping a comfortable distance.”

The habitat is open to the public, and guests may be able to catch a glimpse of Asha and her baby, according to zoo officials. The baby’s sex and weight is still unknown.

“As long as keepers observe that baby and mom are doing well, they will continue to let Asha take the lead on providing care,” zoo officials said.

Asha, 32, was born at the zoo in October 1992, while Goma, 34, arrived in 2016 as part of a national breeding program to keep the western lowland gorilla species alive.

are considered critically endangered because of their declining numbers from disease and poaching as well as habitat loss caused by logging, human settlements and mining.

The west African forests and swamps the gorillas call home also features coltan deposits, a mineral used to make mobile phones and other electronics. Increasing demand for coltan has led to increasing habitat destruction, zoo officials said.

Coltan is recyclable, and devices can be recycled in marked bins at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, mailed to recycling companies like or dropped off at electronics stores.

Beezler and her sister, Honey, arrived at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in 1994, according to a from the zoo. Honey died in 2022, but Beezler , becoming the oldest living Asiatic black bear in human care in the United States.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo staff described Beezler as “a celebrated member of the community” and “sweet, confident and patient — with a side of respectable sass.”

She surpassed the American Zoo Association’s median life expectancy by three years, zoo officials said.

In human years, Beezler was in her 90s.

“It seems like she only turned ‘old’ really recently,” Jessi Palmer, a Rocky Mountain Wild animal keeper, said in a statement. “She was still so mentally sharp, observant and engaged. It����ap like we knew she was old, but she didn’t believe it. I think many people who are aging related to her and were inspired by her. She just kept going.”

Just six months after her birthday party, Beezler had a different kind of celebration that zoo officials called her “.” The elderly bear spent Sunday relaxing in the sunshine and enjoying cookies, whipped cream, muffins and meatballs.

“It may sound strange, but we work hard and have hours of discussions to make sure we’re giving each animal its Last Best Day,” Cheyenne Mountain President and CEO Bob Chastain stated in the zoo’s news release. “…The team was able to achieve that peaceful passing for Beezler, and that����ap comforting to all of us. She’ll be deeply missed.”

Animal keepers who worked with Beezler remembered the bear fondly and said she continued to surprise them, even in her 30s.

One Rocky Mountain Wild animal keeper, Kelsey Walker, said the team was delivering enrichment items into Beezler’s outdoor area by zipline when it got stuck.

“Before we could shake it loose, Beezler was scaling a diagonal tree trunk and balancing on her back legs to reach it,” Walker stated in the zoo’s release. “That was typical Beezler — defying the odds and making you rethink everything you thought you knew.”

Beezler trained and taught zoo staff nearly as much as they did her, according to Erika Furnes, who worked with Beezler for nearly a decade.

“A big part of our role is to help guests fall in love with animals, but she didn’t need us,” Furnes said in a statement. “She did that on her own. People connected with her in so many ways, and she was the perfect ambassador for her species.”

Anyone who watched the skies during the holidays last year would have seen hundreds of the buzzing, blinking, battery-operated bugs moving synchronously.

The drone-entertainment industry, which barely existed five years ago, is also looking up — especially as technology improves, and event producers in Colorado discover alternatives or add-ons to the messy, potentially dangerous yet nostalgic thrills of fireworks on holidays like July 4 and New Year’s Eve.

“Safety and sustainability are always a big concern, and that was one of our founding principles of starting this business,” said Tom Dolan, owner of Denver’s Brightflight Drone Shows. “The other one is customization. Imagination is the only limitation at a certain point. If somebody wants a 300-foot-tall Blucifer [in the sky] with [images of] planes landing at Denver International Airport in the background, we can pull that off.”

Brightflight runs 80 to 90 drone shows per year in Colorado, and Dolan expects that number to go up in 2026. His client list, which ranges from Visit Denver to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, is growing rapidly as they discover the joys of drones, he said.

More drones can mean fewer traditional fireworks, even as the adrenaline-pumping “boom factor” of fireworks still dominates most civic displays, according to . But while fireworks companies adamantly defend their safety records, some event organizers — and audiences — are increasingly embracing drones.

That includes cities such as Aspen, in the fire-sensitive high country, but also the cities adjacent to vast stretches of land east of the Front Range, like Parker.

“With the growing pattern of warmer, drier summers, we remain hyper-vigilant about wildfire danger in Aspen,” wrote Wesy Armour-Cook, special events assistant manager for the city of Aspen, in an email to The Denver Post. “Our town sits at the top of a valley, which makes evacuation incredibly challenging should a fire ignite within city limits.

Choosing drones allows us to offer a fun, high-impact finale to the day without the risks that come with fireworks,” Armour-Cook added. “Keeping Aspen environmentally responsible and accountable is always at the forefront of our decision-making.”

Drones can be friendlier all-around for viewers and event planners, said Eric Raya Steinbeiss, the Civic Center Conservancy’s director of community partnerships and activations. Raya Steinbeiss programs the annual show, , taking place this year above Denver’s Civic Center from 5 to 10 p.m. on July 3.

Professional fireworks shows, which can cost anywhere between $300 and $1,200 per minute depending on the number of launches, have burned the rubber membrane on the roof of the City and County Building during the in previous years, Raya Steinbeiss said, adding that drone shows are cleaner.

They’re also comparable to fireworks in cost, ranging from $15,000 to $50,000 or more for a large display, depending on size and complexity. That gives programmers a good idea of what they’re getting with either choice, Raya Steinbeiss said

“A lot of people don’t realize all the debris fireworks can create,” he said. “We found so much of it on the roof of the City and County building that we had to pay to clean it up. The building manager is very, very happy that it’s not happening anymore because it did cause a lot of damage.”

That’s partly why Indy Eve — downtown’s biggest Fourth of July event — switched from fireworks to drones for the first time in 2024. It’s not just environmental sustainability or mess to worry about, but cost effectiveness, safety, and longevity.

“They’re also just sensory-friendly,” Raya Steinbeiss added. “Drones allow more people to enjoy it, and it’s more considerate for kids and pets. We saw a huge positive response from the show last year, so we’re happy to bring it back.”

Software allows drone programmers to artistically animate fleets of synchronized machines, which cost about $8,00 to $1,000 each and carry a battery life of 15 minutes. They sport capable of displaying more than four billion colors, , a Philadelphia company that produces hybrid drone displays. They’re typically owned and serviced by the companies that are hired for the displays, not the cities that hire them.

Colorado’s market has matched the high-tech spectacle’s ascension. The company Hire UAV Pro has staged advertising campaigns, concerts and public drone displays in spots such as Westcliffe, Boulder, and at the Gaylord Rockies Resort across more than 100 events. Open Sky Drone Light Shows also operates big events in and outside of Colorado, with prices starting at $15,000 per show.

dominates the holiday skies in Denver. The company runs not only the Indy Eve drone shows, but holiday displays paid for by Visit Denver that can be seen throughout central Denver, including at the popular Christkindlmarket at Civic Center.

Ninety-five percent of everyone who watches them are seeing them for the first time, estimated Brightflight’s Dolan. His company is only two years old but has enjoyed rapid advances that allow him to add up to 100 drones to his shows every few months.

Those shows cost between $10,000 to $15,000 for private audiences or corporate retreats, and $50,000 or more for displays that can span 500 feet in view of of tens of thousands of people. They operate over sports fields and other empty, secured areas — just in case one of the drones fails.

That means shows that were formerly 300 strong are now composed of 500 flying machines creating dense, moving images in an array of hues and styles. Imagery includes not only Christmas and Fourth of July icons, but copyrighted public artworks such as “Mustang” (a.k.a. Blucifer), “I See What You Mean” (the Big Blue Bear), sports logos and more.

But the rush to drones obscures the pleasures and benefits of fireworks, say some producers, and the reality is that they can co-exist in creative ways, in some cases even combining with one another in a single show.

“You can get the best of both worlds, but not everybody can afford both, so you have to choose,” said Jim Oetken, owner of Yarmouth, Iowa-based J&M Displays, which operates dozens of Colorado fireworks displays out of its Keenesburg office. “Drones didn’t give the wow-power of people wanting fireworks, but they’re something new that people are having fun with. Fireworks have been around forever, and will continue to be.”

This year, FlyteCo Tower is selling $40 tickets to the top of the 11-story tower (formerly Stapleton Air Traffic Control Tower) to watch the surrounding fireworks displays with an unobstructed view — a first for its Independence Day operations. But any nearby drone shows will also be visible.

“Revelers will be able to catch essentially all of the firework shows across the Denver area, including Aurora, Westminster, downtown Denver,” FlyteCo said.

In Aurora, the city’s fire rescue team this year lifted restrictions for buying and using fireworks between June 15 and July 4, having consulted safety research from the University of Colorado. (Fireworks that explode or leave the ground — that’s most of them — are still illegal across much of Colorado.) Aurora has also maintained its contract with Pennsylvania’s Zambelli Fireworks for this year’s at the Aurora Municipal Center. Zambelli’s track record for safety and professionalism is proven, according to the city, which didn’t make its event organizer available for comment.

But safety should always be the No. 1 concern, regardless of the type of show, said Jessica Zambelli, whose company produces roughly 2,000 fireworks shows each year across the U.S.

“It takes days of precision work,” she said. “And adding the drone component requires hours of choreography and programming. It is a massive effort in planning, prep and safety checks to bring the storytelling to life with fireworks and drones.”

In Estes Park, on the edge on Rocky Mountain National Park, the city-run fireworks display is launched over the largest body of water in the valley, Lake Estes, from a sand bar as fire district personnel patrol the area.

“Providing a professionally organized fireworks display like the Town’s can help reduce fireworks at private locations that may be illegal, unsafe or cause fire danger,” the city said in an email to The Denver Post.

More than 10,200 emergency room visits across the country in 2022 were the result of fireworks-related injuries, and 73% of those visits happened between June 17 and July 17, according to a report from the . The National Fire Protection Association estimates that fireworks each year in the United States.

There were fewer than a half dozen injuries from professional drone shows last year, according to news media estimates, and no deaths, although a high-profile mishap at New Year’s Eve show in Orlando prompted the FAA to shut some drone shows down nationwide. However, the comparisons are uneven given that the majority of fireworks injuries result from personal use, not professional displays, whereas drone users typically operate individual machines.

Brightflight’s Dolan tests his drone shows over an empty, unspecified field in Broomfield to prevent just such an accident. He’s excited about the rapidly advancing technology that will soon turn drones basically into pixels in images and surfaces for flying 3D structures.

“As drones become more and more of a household concern, you’ll see more competition,” he said. “But there’s a large barrier to entry, with cost and obtaining permits and forms from the FAA, so for now you’re essentially seeing a movement that’s in its infancy.”

Two mother skunks, Isabel and Padfoot, each gave birth to a litter of seven “stinking cute” babies that arrived exactly two weeks apart, according to the zoo’s post.

“That����ap fourteen tiny bundles of cuteness keeping their paws full,” the zoo wrote in a post on announcing the baby skunks’ arrival.

Isabel’s outdoor-themed litter of five girls — Acadia, Roosevelt, Katamai, Sequoia and River — and two boys, Kenai and Theodore, arrived on May 5, according to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

As of the zoo’s Sunday announcement, the seven kits were just starting to open their eyes, grow tiny teeth and interact with each other.

Padfoot’s litter also carried on their mother’s Harry Potter theme.

The skunk gave birth to two girls, named Mrs. Norris and Pigwidgeon, and five boys — Trevor, Niffler, Buckbeak, Aragog and Phoenix — on May 19, zoo officials said.

Each of the 14 babies is marked by a patch of dye on their back, according to a video posted by the zoo.

“Because they look so similar at this age, each little (one) is given a color to help tell them apart,” zoo officials said. “This is important because their care team closely monitors their weight and overall health while they’re so young.”

As the kits grow and become more independent in the coming months, they’ll head to other accredited zoos in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Colorado zoo officials said.

But there’s still time to visit them before they head out.

The kits aren’t yet exploring the skunk habitat on their own, but they will be soon, zoo officials said. Until then, the best chance to see them is at the skunk training demonstrations in The Loft at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo will also host meet-and-greets between 11 a.m. and noon and again from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 14, and Sunday, June 15, in .

“Waddle we do with all this cuteness?” zoo officials wrote in an announcing the chick’s arrival.

At 22 days old, the zoo’s newest baby weighs just over two pounds, according to the news release. The chick weighed only one-fifth of a pound when it first hatched.

Visitors can spot — or hear — the chick in the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s penguin building in Water’s Edge Africa.

“While it’s usually snuggled in the nest, guests might see it wriggle out, or hear it peeping,” zoo officials said.

The chick is “an important ambassador” for African penguins, which were officially listed as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2024, zoo officials said in a news release.

Less than 10,000 breeding pairs of African penguins remain in the wild. If current trends continue, these charismatic birds could be extinct in the wild by 2035, zoo officials said.

Since 2010, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo guests and members have contributed more than $159,675 to the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds in support of African penguin conservation, zoo officials said in the release.

The Colorado Springs zoo also joined the program for the African Penguin in 2020.

“Every visit to CMZoo is conservation in action,” officials stated in the release. “Guests visiting CMZoo can see African penguins up close, including this new chick, knowing their visit helps support a future for this species in the wild.”

Two Colorado zoos made the cut for after zoos nationwide were nominated by a panel of experts and then voted on by USA Today’s readership: the at the Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance, in City Park, and Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s Rocky Mountain Wild exhibit, in Colorado Springs.

USA Today’s criteria included that zoos “not only educate but also engage visitors by transporting them to another place,”

The Toyota Elephant Passage, ranked tenth on the list, has the largest bachelor Asian elephant herd in the country, according to Jake Kubie, Denver Zoo spokesperson. The roughly ten acres of habitat has “multiple indoor and outdoor habitats, water features where they can fully submerge and swim,” Kubie said.

The exhibit also has two daily educational demonstrations, where the animal care specialists teach the elephants how to lift their legs or open their mouths so the specialists can make sure they are healthy.

Denver Zoo also has lots of opportunities for the elephants to socialize, which allows for the zoo to study how bachelor elephants interact with each other, Kubie said.

, at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, has been voted second best zoo exhibit nationwide since 2022. It features mountain lions, Alaska moose, Canada lynx, Mexican wolves, and a bald eagle, according to its website. USA Today readers also voted Cheyenne Mountain Zoo the No. 2 zoo in the country and the No. 2 zoo membership.

Activists with the sued the last summer on behalf of the facility’s five elephants: Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo. The project����ap organizers wanted to get the animals released into a sanctuary under the writ of habeas corpus, which protects people against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment.

El Paso County Court dismissed the case in June, ruling that the writ of habeas corpus doesn’t apply to elephants because animals do not qualify as “persons” under state or federal law. The Nonhuman Rights Project appealed the case to the Colorado Supreme Court, which has now upheld that decision.

“‘Person’ is a term that attaches to any individual or entity possessing (or capable of possessing) a legal right,” the Nonhuman Rights Project wrote in its October appeal. “…If animals have legal rights, then they are legal persons.”

The state’s Supreme Court justices disagreed with the activists and affirmed the district court����ap June decision, ruling that habeas corpus does not apply to nonhuman animals, “no matter how cognitively, psychologically or socially sophisticated they may be.”

Since 2013, the Nonhuman Rights Project has filed nine lawsuits, including this one, to free elephants and chimpanzees in New York, Colorado, California and Hawaii. It has yet to win a single case.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo leaders celebrated the outcome while sharply criticizing the Nonhuman Rights Project in a statement Tuesday.

“The courts have proven now five times that their approach isn’t reasonable, but they continue to take it. It seems their real goal is to manipulate people into donating to their cause by incessantly publicizing sensational court cases with relentless calls for supporters to donate,” zoo officials said.

The zoo is and has raised more than $1 million for through admissions, according to the organization.

In a statement, said the court’s decision “perpetuates a clear injustice” and that future courts would reject the idea that nonhuman animals have no right to liberty.

Some Colorado animal activists said they believe the court justices missed the mark with their decision.

“The more we learn about animals, the more difficult it becomes to justify denying them basic rights,” Justin Marceau, University of Denver animal law professor and director of the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, said in a statement. “The elephants in this case are undeniably emotionally and cognitively complex individuals that suffer immensely due to their captivity.”

Marceau said that excluding all nonhuman animals from the right to habeas corpus “has arbitrarily prohibited (animals) from exercising their rights to be free of unlawful captivity.”

Even if the elephants could be considered persons under Colorado law, the Nonhuman Rights Project still didn’t have evidence to support the claim that they were unlawfully confined, Supreme Court justices wrote in an opinion summary Tuesday.

The “Zoo holds the elephants under a broad framework of laws that permit zoos to hold nonhuman animals for public display in exactly the manner the Zoo is doing,” the justices wrote.