Snowleopard's Mammals: A Lifetime List of Species

Yes, from my most recent two visits to the otherwise-fantastic Bronx Zoo, I remember this enclosure sticking out like a sore thumb and not liking it at all. I also remember the leopard making distressed sounds in addition to the pacing.

Also, although Amur leopards are put in environments better suited to a leopard of a different subspecies with the reasoning that the AZA only handles them, what is your personal opinion on it? Technically they don’t live in tropical Indonesian rainforests. San Diego also puts an Amur leopard in an Africa-themed area, despite the African leopard being more appropriate for such a thing.

 

I think the controversy over this exhibit is about a lot more than simply being indoors only. I would be open to the possibility that an all-indoor leopard exhibit could be done successfully, however the fact of the matter is this exhibit is a tiny glass box with few-to-none hiding opportunities for the leopard, and is housing a leopard subspecies from Russia in a jungle-themed exhibit. Bronx Zoo really should replace the Amur leopard with either clouded leopard or binturong, or even better just demolish this glass box in its entirety.

 

Hoenderdaell has Persian leopards instead of Amur, and Burgers' Zoo has Sri Lankan leopards

 

@PossumRoach I've visited 3 zoos with the word 'Rescue' in their name and none of them were very impressive.

In Sync Exotics Wildlife Rescue & Educational Center (Wylie, TX) (2015)
The Reptile Guy: Rescue & Education Center (Abbotsford, BC) (2015)
Wisconsin Big Cat Rescue (Rock Springs, WI) (2018)

@NNM. I used to have more of an issue with Amur Leopards being kept in exhibits that weren't geographically appropriate, but over the years I've accepted that the AZA is only ever going to focus on the one Leopard subspecies. Probably 99% of visitors won't care at all, but for us zoo nerds it's a minor problem.

@Neil chace It's remarkable that almost 40 years later (1985 opening), JungleWorld mostly holds up well but that darn Amur Leopard exhibit has clearly not been adequate for the past couple of decades. We are all waiting for the day when the zoo houses Leopards outside, but who knows if that day will ever come. Hey, at least Brookfield Zoo is doing something about its early 1980s Gorilla accommodation in Tropic World.

@Mr Gharial Perfect! Thanks. I've edited my list.

 

Aren’t Amur and North Chinese the same subspecies or am I confused?

 

No they are not the same.

 

Amur leopard = Panthera pardus orientalis
North Chinese leopard = Panthera pardus fusca

So, no they are not the same.


I'm loving this thread, but all the American roadside zoos are kinda depressing.

 

It does hold up reasonably well, at least from a welfare perspective, however I did find myself being unimpressed by JungleWorld compared to many of the other exhibits at Bronx Zoo. The gharial pool is simply incredible, but for much of the rest of the building the foliage seems separate from the actual animal exhibits, making it a less immersive exhibit than I was hoping for. In a zoo loaded with world class exhibits, JungleWorld didn't stand out to me in the way it might at a lesser institution. It doesn't help that your only option is to look down upon a lot of the residents, either.

Look at this photo by @Newt and notice the location of the exhibit plants relative to the langur exhibit:

Or this photo by @TinoPup of the Malayan tapir beach:

 

Ah, thank for the clarification. Although it seems they are in fact called Panthera pardus japonensis.

 

I have visited only a single zoo with "rescue" in its name, the Rescate Wildlife Rescue Center in Costa Rica. The place two names for some reason, it's technically called Rescate Wildlife Rescue Center (ZooAve). That place is honestly an excellent facility. It has a couple of weak points, notably macaws on sticks and one tiny primate cage, but other than those little blips is a very high quality facility. Several of the best enclosures I've ever seen can be found there.

 

Thanks for the correction. I got my scientific names mixed up somehow.

 

I've seen Cheetahs at 76 zoos and they are different from other felines because Cheetahs almost always receive decent quality exhibits. There aren't any examples of roadside American zoos with Cheetahs in crappy little cages such as was the case with Tigers, Bobcats or Leopards, and a large grassy yard seems sufficient to maintain this species in captivity.

There are THREE years where I saw a heck of a lot of Cheetahs:

2008 = 13 new zoos with Cheetahs
2010 = 17 new zoos with Cheetahs
2019 = 17 new zoos with Cheetahs

1- Alberta Game Farm/Polar Park (Canada) – Cheetah – 1975
2- San Diego Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2006
3- San Diego Zoo Safari Park (USA) – Cheetah – 2006
4- Denver Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2006
5- Monarto Zoo (Australia) – Cheetah – 2007
6- Toledo Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
7- Toronto Zoo (Canada) – Cheetah – 2008
8- Smithsonian’s National Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
9- Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
10- Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
11- Memphis Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
12- Knoxville Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
13- Fort Worth Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
14- Oklahoma City Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
15- Phoenix Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
16- Disney’s Animal Kingdom (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
17- Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
18- White Oak Conservation Center (USA) – Cheetah – 2008
19- Greater Vancouver Zoo (Canada) – Cheetah – 2009
20- Oregon Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
21- Wildlife Safari (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
22- Tulsa Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
23- Kansas City Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
24- Saint Louis Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
25- Milwaukee County Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
26- Binder Park Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
27- Cleveland Metroparks Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
28- Philadelphia Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
29- Maryland Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
30- Montgomery Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
31- Baton Rouge Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
32- Houston Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
33- Caldwell Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
34- Dallas Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
35- San Antonio Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
36- ABQ BioPark Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2010
37- The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens (USA) – Cheetah – 2011
38- Great Plains Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2012
39- Indianapolis Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2012
40- Brevard Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2012
41- Naples Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2012
42- ZooTampa at Lowry Park (USA) – Cheetah – 2012
43- Busch Gardens Tampa Bay (USA) – Cheetah – 2012
44- Little Rock Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2012
45- Dickerson Park Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2012
46- Sunset Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2012
47- Scovill Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2014
48- Tanganyika Wildlife Park (USA) – Cheetah – 2014
49- Woodland Park Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2014
50- In Sync Exotics Wildlife Rescue & Educational Center (USA) – Cheetah – 2015
51- Fossil Rim Wildlife Center (USA) – Cheetah – 2015
52- Safari West Wildlife Preserve (USA) – Cheetah – 2017
53- Fresno Chaffee Zoo (USA) – Cheetah – 2017
54- Project Survival’s Cat Haven (USA) – Cheetah – 2017
55- Planckendael Zoo (Belgium) – Cheetah – 2019
56- Pakawi Park (Belgium) – Cheetah – 2019
57- Pairi Daiza (Belgium) – Cheetah – 2019
58- Safari Parc Monde Sauvage (Belgium) – Cheetah – 2019
59- Aachener Zoo (Germany) – Cheetah – 2019
60- Opel Zoo (Germany) – Cheetah – 2019
61- Zoo Neuwied (Germany) – Cheetah – 2019
62- Cologne Zoo (Germany) – Cheetah – 2019
63- Wuppertal Zoo (Germany) – Cheetah – 2019
64- Krefeld Zoo (Germany) – Cheetah – 2019
65- Dierenrijk (Animal Kingdom) (Netherlands) – Cheetah – 2019
66- Beekse Bergen (Netherlands) – Cheetah – 2019
67- ZooParc Overloon (Netherlands) – Cheetah – 2019
68- Burgers' Zoo (Netherlands) – Cheetah – 2019
69- Berlin Tierpark (Germany) – Cheetah – 2019
70- Serengeti-Park (Germany) – Cheetah – 2019
71- Tierpark Strohen (Germany) – Cheetah – 2019
72- Ree Park Safari (Denmark) – Cheetah – 2022
73- Parken Zoo (Sweden) – Cheetah – 2022
74- Boras Zoo (Sweden) – Cheetah – 2022
75- Kristiansand Zoo (Norway) – Cheetah – 2022
76- Wildlife World Zoo, Aquarium & Safari Park (USA) – Cheetah – 2023

One thing that I'd like to see more of in zoos would be a raised area for Cheetahs. Whenever I come across an exhibit that has a tree stump, or a wooden platform, or some kind of undulating hilly zone, quite often Cheetahs will be on top of that area scanning the horizon. Rather than having a flat grassy yard, zoos would do well to have at least one raised platform for these big cats. An example would be the enclosure at Monarto Zoo (Australia):



@marmolady

My most memorable encounter with a Cheetah was at White Oak Conservation Center (USA) in Florida, as my wife and I had free admission to that facility. At that time, in late 2008, there was Harapan the Sumatran Rhino, approximately 15 Okapis and 30 Cheetahs, amongst many other species. We went into the exhibit with a Cheetah and were allowed to pet the animal for a long time. A wonderful experience! There used to be a whole bunch of photos in the gallery of us handling the docile feline, but they were deleted as ZooChat began a policy of not including any people in photos. Here's the animal we met, and like a lot of Cheetahs I've seen over the years, this cat lived with a dog as a companion.



Wildlife Safari (USA) in southern Oregon is legendary for its breeding success with Cheetahs, with the latest number being 251 cubs born there. I recently revisited this park and there are 27 Cheetahs currently at the zoo. Just like White Oak, this zoo has a long row of chain-link cat yards and some are behind-the-scenes.



A Cheetah with a Rhodesian Ridgeback in a small yard in the walking section of the safari park:



@Pleistohorse

Saint Louis Zoo (USA) has a long, grassy yard for Cheetahs with some fake termite mounds in the excellent River's Edge section of the zoo.



An outstanding Cheetah exhibit can be found at The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens (USA), in a region that commonly sees temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius/113 Fahrenheit in the summer. This is a spacious, naturalistic habitat that I've marveled at on both my visits to this top-tier zoo.



In Florida, it's quite easy to have lush exhibits with a lot of vegetation, just like this Cheetah enclosure at Brevard Zoo (USA):



I had a great time watching some Cheetahs racing around their exhibit at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay (USA) in 2012. There's a well-worn path through this long enclosure.



And the exhibit is also heavily themed at one end:



@geomorph

Cheetah Outpost opened at Little Rock Zoo (USA) in 2012, the same year I toured this facility. I remember several yards for Cheetahs, all long and narrow that allow the cats to build up a little speed.



There was even a building called Cheetah Conservation Outpost that had a series of tanks for herps, plus Naked Mole Rats and conservation information about Cheetahs.



@Coelacanth18

In a single month in Western Europe in 2019, I saw Cheetahs at 17 zoos and again the exhibit quality was impressive. This is a feline that exists almost entirely in accredited zoos, with very few outliers (In Sync Exotics Wildlife Rescue & Educational Center (USA) would be one) and in many high-quality enclosures.

I saw a Cheetah racing around during an afternoon thunderstorm at Aachener Zoo (Germany) in an exhibit with a couple of little huts.



At Opel Zoo (Germany), I saw a female Cheetah with 6 cubs that were only one-month old:



Here are the babies just a few months later:



@Jogy

Beekse Bergen (Netherlands) often has multiple exhibits for the same species, which allows for a lot of mixing and matching of specific animals. This excellent zoo has some enormous Cheetah exhibits, with a few raised sections as well.



@Mr Gharial

Where are the two Cheetahs at Parken Zoo (Sweden)? They are lounging on top of their wooden shelter. More zoos need to incorporate some height into their Cheetah exhibits.



I'll end off by highlighting a zoo that very few zoo nerds go to and it was an arduous task for me to drive to it during the summer of 2022. The city of Kristiansand, with a population of less than 100,000 citizens and almost 4 hours south of Oslo, has a zoo called Kristiansand Zoo (Norway) that receives a million visitors each year. It's full of superb exhibits, including a trio of Cheetah yards in the African zone near the entrance.









Felidae:

Tigers - 195 zoos
Lions - 179 zoos
Bobcats - 128 zoos
Cougars - 118 zoos
Leopards - 98 zoos
Cheetahs - 76 zoos

 

I know you missed the cheetahs at my local zoo by about 2 years (Roger Williams Park) but I was lucky enough to see a cheetah use the "Lion King" rocks on my visit in 2022. Honestly, I am not sure why they never used lions in that exhibit, as during my lifetime there has only been cheetahs and African painted dogs (of which you saw the latter in 2010).

 

Funny enough, I was thinking of this exact exhibit when @snowleopard mentioned including elevated spaces for cheetahs. On many visits (anecdotally, I suspect on the majority of visits actually) I've seen at least one of the cheetah girls on the rocks in the exhibit. As for lions in that exhibit, I'm not even sure if the exhibit would be able to contain lions, as they are of course much stronger than cheetahs and capable of jumping higher too. I have no clue what the holdings are like for that exhibit, but I'd imagine the holding needs for lions and cheetahs are also quite different.

Photo from first viewing by @TinoPup:

Photo from second viewing by @Pleistohorse:

And an excellent photo by @ThylacineAlive of one of the cheetahs on a rock:

While I don't know for certain, as I don't follow cheetahs to the extent @TinoPup does, I question whether this would still be the case if you repeated some of your earlier road trips today. I know cheetahs have become much more common outside of the AZA in recent years, so it's certainly a possibility that there are more examples of horrible exhibits these days. While I couldn't find any as bad as some of the more extreme tiger exhibits, a quick gallery search brought up a handful of less than stellar cheetah exhibits:

A completely barren cheetah exhibit in Safari North Wildlife Park's "South America" exhibit (by @Dhole dude):

A "Cheetah Breeding Center" at Virginia Safari Park (by @TinoPup):



Although you may also be correct cheetahs oftentimes get the better exhibits as far as cats are concerned. At "Panther Ridge Conservation Center", @pachyderm pro took these photos on the exact same day in 2020, one is of a jaguar exhibit and one a cheetah exhibit:



Likewise at "The Wild Animal Park", where @TinoPup photographed a cheetah exhibit and a leopard exhibit:



Perhaps the fact cheetahs don't require as strong of containment as other large cats has something to do with the differing enclosure quality.

 

I think you've certainly hit the nail on the head for the last point. Cheetahs are almost always exhibited in open-topped enclosures, since they aren't really jumpers or climbers. Building enclosed exhibits is much more expensive because of all of the support structures, and so those tend to be smaller, whereas if all you need is fencing to enclose open space (not saying that's all cheetahs need - I've seen some dismal habitats that just looked like fenced-in soccer fields), you can provide a much larger habitat for much less cost. It's for that reason that I feel leopard, jaguar, snow leopard, and puma often get the short-end of the stick with exhibits - they're big cats, but tend to be kept in proportionately smaller habitats due to the fact that they are (usually) roofed over.

 

If you ever get the chance to visit Tobu Zoo in Japan you might have the privilege to see a cheetah in a crappy gallery type enclosure. That is, of course, if they still have them.

edit here’s the image just in case.

 

The mangrove exhibit was originally a dynamic mixed-species environment for proboscis monkeys and Asian small-clawed otters. Bronx Zoo had a robust breeding program until 2002 when they sent their last two to Singapore and replaced them with ebony langurs. As much as I would love to see proboscis monkeys back at the zoo, crab-eating macaques would utilize all the space well. As for the tapirs, I have the same argument that I'd have for bringing in the macaques - I count water space as usable space. Since the tapirs have access to the pool in addition to the land space (and I've even seen them completely submerge!), it is a veritable habitat for them.

 

I just remembered a special moment with Cheetahs that I was going to mention at the end of my post but I'll discuss it now. In the summer of 2022 I spent a day with Konstantin (@twilighter) and we toured Nordens Ark and Boras Zoo, a pair of brilliant Swedish facilities. At that latter zoo, we had a really cool experience and here's what I wrote on my Snowleopard's 2022 Road Trip thread:

There are 5 Cheetahs and 4 White Rhinos all living together in the same enclosure. We were thrilled to get some photos of a White Rhino and Cheetah together, but later on we backtracked and went to that exhibit again and we saw an extraordinary sight. It’s surreal enough to see the two species interacting, but there was a marvelous display of territorial aggression from a very large rhino. It leaned forward and ran full tilt at a Cheetah. The icing on the cake for this experience was seeing the reaction of the cat. It waited until the rhino had its horn down and we thought that we were going to witness a gored feline, but at the last possible moment the Cheetah calmly stepped to the right and missed the charge. The Cheetah didn’t even shift into high gear, as instead it seemed to yawn, sniff and put its nose in the air as the nearsighted rhino lurched forward. It’s interesting to note that Boras Zoo has had its famous Cheetah/White Rhino combination for at least 20 years!

Here are 3 photos from my visit:

 

I may be wrong but I believe the melanistic leopards who formerly lived at Bronx were not Amur as the current resident of that enclosure is. I believe they were non-subspecific, possibly a mix of African and Asian blood, or maybe some combination of South Asian subspecies.