Tigers, Lions, & Leopards OH, MY! (Big Cats)

Well, so does "Le Parc de Felins" and the enclousres are all top-notch. And i never liked those names. "Breeding Compound" just sounds like they got a group of cats and put them in a bunker. I know it is a professional facility, but it doesn´t seem the best place for cats...

I´ll try to ask again my question. What are the best big cat collections in Europe, besides LPDF?
I know that in Germany both Berlins are good, and Dortmund too. In the UK, Port Lympne is the best.
In the Iberian Peninsula, Lisbon is the best. 16 species and subspecies of Big Cats. Followed (vey weird) by Zoo da Maia with 8. Then comes Barcelona with 6.

 

Zoo d'Amneville is one of my favorite zoo's to see felines with European wild cat, caracal, serval, puma, lion (so ssp), sumatran tiger, siberian tiger, fishing cat, jaguar, snowleopard, arabian sandcat, Iranian leopard, leopard (no ssp), lynx, white tiger (I wish they would ditch those) and next year there will be white lions.

Also Wuppertal zoo has an excellent cat collection (unfotunatly not in the best enclusures accept the siberian tigers and lions): arabian sandcat, blackfooted cat, central asian lynx, geoffroy's cat, gordon's wild cat, Indian leopard, clouded leopard, siberian lynx, snowleopard, southeast asian golden cat, leopard (no ssp), cheetah (used to have a king cheetah, it died)

 

That´s great, specially for Amneville. I always think french zoos are underated!

 

@ Thylacinalive - what in the world is a trinil tiger???

 

An extinct subspecies of tiger from about 1.2 million years ago. The fossils were found in Trinil, Java. It is believed to have died out fifty thousand years ago. It is not believed to be directly related to the Javan or Bali Tigers. It was much larger then today's tigers (including the Amur) being about 470kg. at a low estimate

 

o my god. you know everything about felines

 

I wish. The first page or so of this thread is me asking TeaLovingDave questions!!

Now, I don't want to get this thread into a whole Cryptidzoology mode but I want to hear your guy's opinions on some rumors and stories about Big Cats.
1) Surviving Eastern Cougars (Puma Concolor Schorgeri) still living in the Northeastern U.S. and in the Canadian portion of the Appalachian Mountains (if you believe they're/were a seperate subspecies). Now where I live lots of people have reported seeing cougars an occasion in my town! Now, these people know the difference between a lynx, bobcat, domectic cat, and cougar so when I hear these stories describing the same animal and in the same relative area, I believe them. I have never seen one, though, and I don't think there's more then two or three but there was even a incident a few years ago down my road involving a big cat (described as being black in color). I'm doing volunteer work in January where most of the sightings occur so I'll keep you posted but tell me what you think of all this.
2) Black panthers in Australia. The story goes that, in WWII, U.S. naval officers kept black leopard cubs on their ships and when they got too big, they released them where they were- Australia (this is actually a true part of history). Now hundreds of people are reporting seeing big Black Leopards in the Australian bush but whenever samples are brought in, they come back as dog leading to people believing in a huge government cover-up (along with the Thylacine cover-up). Now one guy, took evidence captured in the brush from a supposed Black Leopard and mixed it with evidence taken from a leopard in a zoo and sent it in. The results came back as dog!!!!!!!
3) Beast of Exmoor. People, since the 1970's, have been reporting seeing and having their livestock killed by big cats that range in color from cougar tan to leopard black. One women reported having over 100 sheep killed by wounds to the throat in three years by the cats. One man in Devon reported finding a big cat skull on his farm. The skull was of a cougar.
4) Now this last one is the least likely in my opinion. It's the story of the Sudan Tiger (Panthera Tigris Sudanensis). Paleontologist and Zoologist Paules E. P. Deraniyagala visited Africa and reported finding the fur of a tiger in Cairo Bazaar in 1951. The seller told him the animal was shot in Sudan and he declared the animal a new subspecies of tiger. Paules took a picture of the fur and scientists stated that the fur was of a Caspian Tiger (Panthera Tigris Virgata) and was probably smuggled into the country because the animal was so rare at the time.

 

I am really interested in this topic as well. I was going to attend a lecture about cougars in the Northeast by cougar advocate Bill Betty at Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo, but I was away during the lecture. I believe that there might be some cougars out there that are escaped pets, and even maybe some that traveled from the West (Remember the Meritt Parkway Cougar?), but I'm not entirely sure about pure Eastern Cougars.

 

Is the Eastern cougar the same species that lives in Michigan because the DNR has finally decided to acknowledge the fact that there are cougars in Michigan still back in 2008 or 2009?

 

There is believed to be a relic pure population of about 50 in the Canadian portion of the Appalachian Mountains. Many are probably escapees and a few may be wanderers. Still, there appears to be two or three big cats in and around my town and the Black Panther incident makes me nervous being alone in the woods. One time, when I was younger, I could of sworn I saw a cougar in the woods.

 

If they have acknowledged coygars in Michigan, then they are considered North American Mountain Lions (Puma Concolor Cougar) *. Most scientists consider all cougars in North America to be the same subspecies. Even the Florida Panther (Puma Concolor Coryi) is not an excepted subspecies by everyone.

*When I say North America I'm not including Central America in this instance because there is the excepted Costa Rican Cougar (Puma Concolor Costaricensis). Why do all North American cougars have to be one subspecies but South America has four (mabye more) subspecies.

 

Trinil Tigers are a militia in Sri Lanka and have absolutely nothing to with Panthera tigris.

As for the species of tigers, it comes from a 2006 paper from Groves and Mazak. Their hypothesis places the Bali and Javan Tigers in a separate species (Panthera sondaica), and the Sumatran Tiger in another (Panthera sumatrae), though the Sumatran may represent a hybrid between P. tigris and P. sondaica. All these studies are based upon skull morphology.

 

Just goes to show you, spelling matters. Also, I probably need new glasses.

 

The Trinil Tiger was a real subspecies of Tiger and not a militia in Sri Lanka (what a militia calls itself has no meaning to me).
I still want to see what you guys think of the Big Cat rumors I posted earlier today.

 

Oh my bad. I got that info. off a TV show (canceled TV show at that). Probably should have gotten more credibility on that before posting it. The point is, there is something going on in the Australian bush.
Stories 2-4 I can might go post on a cryptozoology thread but what do you think about the 1st one since we've already started talking about a little.

 

Rule number one, never get your information nowadays from TV shows (especially those on TLC, Animal Planet, or the (pseudo)History Channels).

Rule number two, anecdotes do not equal evidence.

 

Noted
This show was aired years ago. I saw a rerun online (I know, I know). I understand not trusting things on Animal Planet like Mermaids, Dragons, and The Haunted and things on the History Channel like Monster Quest and Ancient Aliens but why not trust other shows and specials on those channels (what's on Animal Planet now anyway?).

 

Good rule of thumb, if the BBC did it, it's ok, it is was done in America, then it's crap. America tend to only publish sensationalist media. Gone are the days of true scientific natural documentaries. We must look across the pond for quality.