Zurich Zoo builds a catwalk for the big cats
Published: Wednesday, Apr 24th 2024, 11:00
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Zurich Zoo has installed a 17-metre-long catwalk for tigers, lions and snow leopards. In future, the big cats will regularly swap areas across this animal bridge, which runs over the heads of visitors.
Separated together - this is the motto under which the animals will live in future. Instead of the previous separate enclosures for the snow leopard, tiger, wolf and lion, they will have a big cat enclosure with a rotation system, as the zoo announced on Wednesday.
However, there is no room for the wolves in this new big cat enclosure. Zurich Zoo therefore gave up keeping wolves in the summer of 2023. Khentii, Sonam and Samija, the three Mongolian wolves, have been living at Biel Zoo ever since.
At "Panterra", as the cat facility is called, the animals will remain physically separated in future. However, they will swap areas on the catwalk several times a day so that they are constantly confronted with new smells and stimuli.
Carers can use sliders to control which areas are connected to each other. The catwalk at a height of 4.5 meters is also a good vantage point. Cats like to lie elevated so that they have everything in view - real tigers are no different from house tigers in this respect.
Meat ropeway to encourage hunting instinct
The zoo is creating additional incentives for the big cats with three feeding ropeways. They are designed to encourage the animals to act out their natural hunting instinct. On the ropeway, meat is pulled through the enclosure at lightning speed. The big cats only have a few seconds to react and grab a piece.
Those who are too slow are left empty-handed. It can happen that the big cats have no food for several days and plenty on other days, writes the zoo. This does not harm the animals because they are able to stockpile food.
This is also vital for survival in the wild, because only around one in ten hunting attempts is successful. The caretakers decide when the meat ropeway flies through, depending on the situation, so that the cats cannot get used to a regularity.
The opening of "Panterra" is planned for spring 2025. During the construction work, the big cats will be housed in other zoos. Tiger Sayan currently lives in Croatia, while tigress Irina, who fatally injured a keeper in 2020, lives in France. The lions are spending the construction period in Hungary and the snow leopards in the Czech Republic.
©Keystone/SDA
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