30th April 2011
This morning the wrath of Casper was unleashed on this helpless tyre. Casper loves playing with objects like this and you can see from this image how this can be a good workout for him and an opportunity to exert his strength and energy on something - check out those leg muscles. Objects like this are especially effective on Casper if we have previously given it to Diamond and Aysha in the enclosure opposite Casper as after watching the two tigers play with it, he loves the thought that it is now in his possession. We don't know the exact weight of the tyres but from a keepers point of vierw in terms of moving it, the one Casper has here could be in excess of 100kg! It is always amusing to see where the tyre ends up as we will put it in one spot and find that Casper will have moved it, who knows how, to the other side by day's end.
Being a young lion in his prime, Casper really enjoys things like this that he can beat up in a sense.
To try and further replicate bringing down a large mammal, we have even in the past dressed up the tyre with a covering of animal skin to simulate a large grazing herbivore out on the plain. These sorts of enrichments are conducted at the 2.30 and 4.30 big cat feeds, so make sure you don't miss these at your visit to the zoo!
casper looks like he is haven fun and hope to see more.
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