Club Meeting: Meet the Mazama Newt with Rachel Ritchason, Deputy Director of Animal Care, Oregon Zoo

This week’s Rotary program featured a fascinating presentation from the Oregon Zoo, highlighting its remarkable role as a leader in wildlife conservation throughout the Pacific Northwest. While many people think of zoos primarily as places to see animals, the Oregon Zoo has become nationally recognized for helping recover endangered native species.

Past successes include helping prevent the extinction of the California condor, the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit, and the Oregon silverspot butterfly, while also tripling the range of Oregon pond turtles through captive breeding and reintroduction efforts.

The Zoo’s newest conservation challenge is the Mazama newt, a species found nowhere in the world except Crater Lake National Park. Closely related to the rough-skinned newt common throughout western Oregon, the Mazama newt has experienced a dramatic decline over the past decade, largely due to invasive signal crayfish that prey on newt eggs and juveniles.

In 2024, the Oregon Zoo was tasked with learning more about the species and developing ways to support its long-term survival. Working in partnership with the National Park Service, the Zoo collected 30 Mazama newts from Crater Lake to establish a conservation population. Researchers are studying their behavior, learning how to breed them successfully in captivity, and developing strategies to help restore the species in the wild as part of a broader 2025–2035 Mazama Newt Conservation Action Plan.

One of the lighter moments of the presentation came as the speaker shared that the newts have proven to be surprisingly social creatures. The Zoo staff has even given each of them a name—including Rocky, Beast, Gill, and Squishy—adding a personal touch to an important conservation effort.

The presentation was an inspiring reminder that modern zoos are much more than places to observe animals. They serve as centers for conservation science, partnering with researchers and public agencies to protect Oregon’s native wildlife for future generations. From condors and turtles to butterflies, pygmy rabbits, and now the Mazama newt, the Oregon Zoo continues to demonstrate how collaborative conservation can make a lasting difference.