Do you have to use net fenced roofs to keep climbing cats from escaping?

I have just uploaded my first photo on Zoobeat - a picture of what I regard to be a really great leopard enclosure (at a Swedish Zoo):

Snow leopard exhibit » ZooBeat Photo Gallery

This photo shows a leopard exhibit with no roof fencing.

I have, however, read that in many American states roof fencing is obligatory when keeping climbing cats.

Any thoughts on this?

 

At this point in time in America, every means of containing a dangerous animal, especially cats, is necessary to prevent another incident like the one that occured in San Francisco. Even though many of these mesh roofed exhibits were built before last Christmas, I doubt we will see any relaxation in barrier design for felines. However the only setback I can see with mesh roofing is the constant cleaning of leaf little that gets caught in the mesh. Most mesh roofed exhibits that I have seen, have some kind of glass/acrylic paneling for viewing into the exhibit.

 

I would add, that it's really a matter of exhibit size and wall height. You can keep cats in without an aviary, but no one will ever see them! Or at least that's the reasoning.

An enclosure that does not use mesh must be far larger and most zoos won't give any more property to an exhibit then is necessary.

 

Snow leopards in Basel, Zurich, Serengetipark Hogendagen, snow leopards and jaguars in Rostock, jaguars in Chester, I saw also pics of leopards and jaguars from Salzburg... don't remember how it is for jaguars in Vienna. Lynx in Mulhouse, Bern, Amersfoort.

...when you count it, surprisingly many zoos have it.

They are usually very nice exhibits, with trees and all vegetation preserved (trees usually have electric wire over trunks). You could snap pics of lynx in Mulhouse and they looked like made in beech forest in the wild. And fence costs probably much less than these fake rocks.

 

I have kept lynx (in the UK) in an open topped exhibit complete with live trees. The fences were just link-mesh with an overhang and electric fencing. I just made sure the live trees were some distance from the fences.

 

Banham Zoo in the UK has an open air Sri-Lankan Leopard enclosure I believe. I've not seen it, but as I understand, it is the largest leopard enclosure in a UK zoo.

 

Jurek, Chester don't have a roof netting over their outdoor jaguar enclosures (just a very high fence)

 

With a metre or so overhang and Hotwired!

 

The Banham open topped enclosure surprised us when we saw it, as open topped enclosures for leopard, puma, jaguar etc are banned in Australia.

An exception has been made in the case of the National Zoo in Canberra which has incredibly high mock rock walls which do tend to overwhelm the pumas within.

An even nicer surprise at Banham was watching the two Sri Lankan leopard cubs!

I was also impressed with the photo on Zoobeat of the Chester jaguar enclosure which we have yet to see in person.

 

dartmoor zoo (as far as i am aware) have an open enclosure for their jaguar

 

That is correct, they have mesh wire 3 sides and a ditch for the other.

 

Extremely dangerous if you ask me. Is there still a Jaguar there? Is it safely contained? I shuddered when I saw this enclosure featured on the TV programmes. These are potentially the most dangerous cats of all, being the most likely to attack and kill if they escape.

 

Steve, do you know why it is that Aus government policy bans open-topped exhibits and is it due to the recommendations based on the NSW animal keeping regulations? I can understand that based on traditional zoo exhibits these agile large cats could pose a problem, but, as you have already pointed out, Canberra's large open-plan exhibit shows that it can be done.

And yes the pumas are swamped in the exhibit. They should have swapped exhibits with the bears.

 

Hi,

In my experience, this is true for clouded leopards and small cats. But somehow snow leopards, jaguars, leopards, European lynxes and servals usualy show themselves.

These exhibits I saw also had short grass and were visible a little from above, so cat had reasonably few places to hide completely.

 

Yes - most Regulations and Standards in Australian States owe their origin to the work originally done in NSW. However, State egos usually mean that each State puts it's own little twist to the regs somewhere. There is currently a push by the Federal government to introduce National Standards and Guidelines for Exhibited Animal Welfare. It would be wonderful if it would eventuate but already some States are acting a bit independent.

One of the major concerns with the smaller, more agile felids is that of escape obviously. And our Queensland government's main fear is that, following an escape, a species may establish a self-sustaining wild population. That weighs more heavily on their minds than any risk to the public or to the escaped animal itself! And that, despite the fact that in over 200 years of zoo-keeping in this country, not one vertebrate pest species has become so as a result of an escape from a zoo.

The Canberra exhibit would be wonderful for bears. As you pointed out earlier, open topped small felid enclosures need a fairly wide vegetation free buffer around the perimiter to avoid the inmates climbing the vegetation and leaping across. As many of these species need lots of vegetation for shade, hide spots etc this can actually limit the amount of that nice big enclosure that they actually use - thus defeating the whole purpose of the original exercise.

 

It was when i visited in December last year and its still listed on isis,i know what you mean about it been contained safely the height of the fence is probably enough but the distance from the ditch may be different if it was distressed or realy angry.

 

There have been many examples of animals in zoos- cats, apes, antelopes, living behind certain barriers quite contentedly until one day when something(extreme panic, anger etc) causes them to prove they can escape the enclosure, whether its by climbing, leaping, swimming or whatever.

 

Theres a balance between to be struck while constructing an exhibit and you can never full take into all considerations.

 

But didn't the jaguar jump over the fence into the lions' enclosure (on Ben's Zoo)? Is the fence separating the two enclosures not as high as the rest of the perimeter fence?

 

I thought he escaped under it because the whole lot needed replacing!