My recently introduced thread about "The best elephant house in the world" is doing well, with lots of interesting posts. So let me try another one with a similar theme. What is the best tiger exhibit in the world, at a zoo - not a wildlife park? Here you are free to take any consideration that you want into mind, you are not limitied to THE HOUSE, as in the elephant thread. I will announce my nominee: The Amur Tiger exhibit at Kolmården Zoo, Sweden. Frequent readers of this web page - who might have gotten to know me and my views and opinions by now - might start to suspect that I am a paid PR agent for Kolmården Zoo, but I am not. I have mentioned this exhibit a lot though, I must admit. And made a lot of PR for the 10 web cameras: Webbkameror.se - TigerCam, TigerWorld, Kolmårdens sibiriska tigrar live, webkamera, webcam, webcamera, webbkameror, webkameror, webkamra, webbkamror, djurpark, zoo, tiger I have spent literally hundreds of hours watching these web cams. I have seen a litter of cubs growing up last year and now look forward to follow the new litter growing up. The outdoor enclosure is 4 800square meters big. It is, as far as I have understood, available to the cats 24/7 all year around (except for occasional maintainence work). One part of it is a flat piece of grass, with some rocks, some trees and a "fake Buddah statue". Another feature is a " partly buried bus" in which visitors can come into, via un underground tunnel and lead by keepers. The cats seem to be highly enriched by this. They run around the bus, jump upon the roof of it and in general act very inquisitive. An artificial river seperates this part from an authentical piece of rocky pine forest, in which a simple wodden shed, with two "chambers" is built. The floors in and outside the chambers are strewn with wooden chips and in bad weather the cats spend a lot of time there. There are a lot of pictures from this exhibit in the gallery and the web cams are also featured in that section of this web page. But as as far as the web cams are concerned, it is best to go directly to the source, where all ten cameras ar shown in the overview mentioned above. Now I know that there are some tough competitors out there. Nominee them and name your reasons, please...
The Minnesota Zoo has the largest tiger exhibit in North America, and it is actually two enormous enclosures that are divided by fencing. One of them is seen by visitors from high atop a wooden boardwalk, and the exhibit itself has a large forest inside the fencing. There is a radio monitor that beeps when pointed at a tiger, as the big cats are nearly impossible to see otherwise. The smaller of the two exhibits has a large pool, many massive trees, and better vantage points for zoo visitors. Other large and impressive tiger exhibits are at the Bronx and San Diego Zoos, although there are a number of pretty good ones scattered throughout North America.
Let me know @Dan when you start to look for the best guppy or Madagascar hissing cockroach zoo exhibit... The ones in Leipzig, Zlin or Poznan are pretty OK, and the one in Brno, integrated into the zoo restaurant, is for that fact (not in regard to the rather lousy indoor husbandry) quite original, too; haven't seen the one in Minnesota (yet), but the one in the Bronx and San Diego Zoo were indeed nice in terms of the visitor factor.
Pretty slow reaction to this thread. So if no one comes up with a better idea/nominee, I will go with snowleopard and announce that the best tiger exhibit in the world is the one in Minnesota! It is indeed both bigger and better than Kolmården. Simply wonderful! You can, of course, check it out at Zoolex: ZooLex Exhibit
There is a very real problem with so called great tiger/large cat exhibits being built at the momment. That being there is often as many as 5 cats rotaing through the exhibit. With there not being a time when there is more than 1 cat on display. This leaving the cats confined to usually small off exhibit areas for very long periods of time. Thus ensuring that when they are on exhibit they are active!
I think the best Tiger exhibits are Tiger Mountain at Bronx Zoo, Tiger Lair at Minnesota Zoo and Tiger Overlook at San Diego Wild Animal Park (I don't really care if its a wildlife park,its a massive exhibit and the third best in my terms)
I agree with Tiger Mountain at the Bronx Zoo... It is a well designed exhibit, several glass panels allow for multiple close up viewing opportunities of the big cats, there is a very large pool for them to swim in on hot days, the exhibit features uneven terrain and multiple hiding spots.....and the area is massive...
i loved the tiger exhibit in leipzig and i know i am not objective but i realy think that our tiger exhibit in the biblical zoo is one of the best i saw....
To drzoomi: Ah.... but you can´t compare those two with the really great ones mentioned above, like Minnesota for instance, can you? Anyway, glad to have you here at ZooChat and thanks for the many interesting photos from Israeli zoos that you have uploaded! To zooman: Sorry to hear that. Not good at all. Do you know if it applies to Minnesota and Bronx, as well? At Kolmården the tigers are all out together all of the time.
Dan, why not? i've visited many zoo's and i realy belive that the tiger exhibit in the biblical zoo is a great one...did you see it? i never been to Minnesota, but i've been to many zoo in the US and Europe and i dont remember any exhibits that shocked me with their how they were. so i'm keeping my opinion oh, and i know it's not a big zoo but El paso zoo had a very nice exhibit for tigers and point defience (Taccoma, WA) are also zoos that i remember for having very nice tiger exhibits.
I also loved Tiger Mountain at the Bronx. It had great viewing, a big pool, a huge space and lots of enrichment. Drzoomi: I agree, i haven't visited minnesota and i'm still giving my opinion. For anyone who has visited a few zoos, the difference between a bad exhibit and a good one is obvious.
drzoomi, in all honesty I have only seen the few pictures in your brilliant collection of photographs from the Biblical Zoo and those particular pictures doesn´t show much of the tiger exhibit as such. Could you give me/us more info? How big is it? More pictures that show more of the exhibit? Anyway: keep your great pictures coming! Israel was a blank spot on ZooChat until you arrived. The Safari Zoological Centre seems absolutely amazing! That group of hippos! You really must tell us more about this place!
Although I haven't been to them personally, I love the look of the exhibits at Wuppertal, Bronx and Minnesota and would love to visit them all someday.
I wasn't overly impressed with Wuppertal, a lot of a fake rock (which I usually don't mind, but here it didn't really add a whole lot) and not that much more room then any other zoo... allthough they did have a large pool which he did use. There is no tiger exhibit from the top of my head that i would tip as really good atm... Sad really.
