Asian Forest Sanctuary - Clouded Leopards

April 17th, 2010.

I have a very charming Clouded Leopard teeshirt I purchased through the Point Defiance website.Dublin Zoo (my local zoo as a child) was one of the first zoos to breed the species and they have always been a great favourite of mine.I am delighted how seriously they are being treated by the zoo community today after many years being sidelined as tricky from a husbandry perspective and near impossible to breed.Several small cat species are following a similar trajectory in collections and I expect that in the next 10-20 years will become more common in zoos as husbandry issues become resolved through close observation and shared experience.The more that small cat husbandry evolves, the more it becomes apparent that there is no "one size fits all" approach suitable to different species.

My wife and I listened to the keeper talk at the clouded leopard temporary exhibit, and we heard all about the new, $1 million enclosure that will open for the leopards in 2011. There are currently 5 of the cats at the Point Defiance Zoo, and by next year there should be a total of 6. Two breeding pairs will rotate on exhibit and then two older cats will continue to be kept off exhibit, and the interesting thing to me is that the zoo is apparently only one of 3 in all of North America actively attempting to breed clouded leopards. The keeper called the group the "terrific trio", and the other two zoos are: National Zoo in Washington, D.C. (mainly off site), and Nashville Zoo. It is disappointing that there are not more zoos that are involved, but that doesn't mean that there might not be other births that occur.