Worst Snow Leopard Exhibit in United States

Worst Snow Leopard Exhibit in United States
02-09-2008

Where is the worst Snow Leopard exhibit in the United States?

02-09-2008

Probably in Omaha's Henry Doorly zoo and Cincinnati Zoo. They are both indoors and are too small.

02-09-2008

I heard some are tucked in roadsde zoos and maybe private flats.

02-09-2008

Have you seen Cleveland's? Inside the Primate, Cat, & Aquatic Building. They have the smallest Snow Leopard exhibit I've ever seen. It has nothing in it but bare concrete walls. Its basically an old style zoo cage with glass on one side instead of iron bars and concrete walls on the other three sides. At least in Omaha they are given large logs to scratch, lay, climb on. Also in Cleveland all the Snow Leopards ever do is pace and sleep, pace, sleep. They only do natural behaviors when given access to their outdoor enclosure. Since they have two Snow Leopards they rotate the two of them, so when one is in the outdoor cage which is still pretty small, the other one is in the indoor cement cell. They had a baby back in 2005. He was fun to watch when he would jump at the glass, but he has left Cleveland and moved to Philadelphia. I don't think he picked up the stereotypical behavior of pacing yet. Plus in Philly he has a nice enclosure-- Bank of America Big Cat Falls. His mom is still in Cleveland and paces horribly. It is quite sad. They really need to make a nicer Snow Leopard exhibit like Bronx or Philly instead of making the Snow Leopard' live in a concrete cell.

02-09-2008

You can see a picture of the bad exhibit if you look at my photos. In the picture the Snow Leopard was pacing.

02-09-2008

Snowleopard posted a pic showing how bad Omaha's snow leopard exhibit is.

Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo - Snow Leopard Exhibit » ZooBeat Photo Gallery

04-09-2008

I used to think the Bronx zoo enclosure was on the bad side but come to think of it, the leopards do have considerably more room. A lot more than their black leopard friends in the Jungleword....

04-09-2008

It's tricky. Snow leopards in the wild travel great distances to hunt, yet they are easily hidden in a large exhibit. The Bronx Zoo created three side-by-side exhibits so that visitors ought to see at least one animal (since they are so easy to miss, the zoo just increased the odds).

So, my friends, how would you create a great snow leopard exhibit and make sure the animals could be enjoyed by the little kiddies?

Perhaps some info on the best exhibits and what makes them so?

04-09-2008

Frankly, Bronx exhibit was rather disappointing for me. Sorry, Zooplantman. Some cages, high, against the light, and making it difficult to view animals. And generally dark - under trees and with hole-like structure.

Rather better was small exhibit of red pandas, making it impossible to see where it ends.

Best snow leopard enclosures I know are Zurich and Basel. Both are open-roofed, both have partially widely spaced fence (deer fence in Basel and chord wire in Zurich) and partially unrestricted view (ground raises). Both have sun, rich vegetation of grass and bushes and sloping backdrop providing cats good lookout area. In both, I saw snow leopard each and every time I visited these zoos.

Little can be improved over there. Maybe make some gigantic exhibit, if you have a natural canyon in a zoo, and put snow leopard next to goats and other C Asian species.

Well, one thing which could actually be changed is native Himalayan vegetation. Basel has dwarf pine, which for every European is symbol of high Alps, but doesn't occcur in C Asia. And Himalayas have lots of fantastic rhododendron and alpine flower sp.

In Basel, cats have enrichment from neighboring tahr exhibit. I saw cats sitting by the fence, watching and licking lips. Tahr, in turn, grazed two meters away in full view and absolutely ignored cats.

Zurich has too narrow public paths and too small viewing area, prone to fat families blocking view. Probably from general lack of space.

Zurich is better. Cats blend with color of rocky ground on the slope of their exhibit. I guess thats why wild snow leopards roll in dust before stalking prey.

06-09-2008

Since the discussion has now turned to GOOD snow leopard exibits also, please check out a picture I just uploaded in the Gallery:

Snow leopard exhibit » ZooBeat Photo Gallery

It is from a zoo in Sweden called Kolmården. I was there as a kid some 35+ years ago, but haven´t been there ever since. A couple of years ago they stopped holding polar bears and now use the old polar bear exhibit to house a pair of snow leopards. I corresponded a bit with the zoo on this matter and was sent the photo I have uploaded. The zoo told me the male and female get along just fine and can be exhibited together all the time.

Some or perhaps most of the water has been removed from the enclosure. New soil and gravel has been put in. The really great thing is that the size of the exhibit is 3000 square meters or 3/4 of an acre, which is unusually big for a leopard enclosure. There are no boring net fence or roof - the walls are high enough to keep the cats inside. At the same time they have an unlimited outlook on their surroundings thanks to the natural rocks which make up a big part of the enclosure.

Surely, this ought to be one of the better snow leopard enclosures in the world?

06-09-2008

What about Pittsburgh Zoo? It has a small (and disappointing) snow leopard exhibit.

06-09-2008

@Jurek7 - Funny thing is, at Bronx Zoo, the angle of the mesh was carefully worked out so that it almost never hit the sun. I haven't seen it in a few years, so perhaps something has changed/

@Dan - I commented on your picture. Thanks for posting.

Hey! I didn't mean to derail BlackRhino's thread! The question was about the Worst exhibit,of course!