St. Patrick's Day Antics!

18th March 2012

Casper, Diamond and Aysha were up to some St. Patrick's day antics on Saturday! They enjoyed receiving their meals within a pint of Guinness, a leprechaun hat and a four leaf clover respectively. Diamond and Aysha originally came from Dublin Zoo, so it was fitting for them to be celebrating the holiday!

Diamond really got into the festivities, taking the action to get the leprechaun hat stuck around his neck and stroll around wearing it proudly for quite some time!

 

   

  

 



Big Cat Roll Call - 2012 Season

The sun has been shining in vast quantities here on the Isle of Wight and so what a better time to catch a glimpse of the big cats enjoying themselves in the Sun. Here are some photos from the past two weeks representing all the cats that reside at the Isle of Wight Zoo.

We do often celebrate their birthdays so if you have a favourite cat you would like to come visit to celebrate with, the birthdays are as follows:

Zena - May 22nd (16 this year)

Diamond and Aysha - August 2nd (14 this year)

Casper - August 25th (6 this year)

Charlie Brown and Snoopy - September 14th (14 this year)

Nahla - September 28th (14 this year)

Lola - October 27th (15 this year)

Zia - December 12th (17 this year)

We dont have exact birthdates for Raijiv, Chandru, Chiquita or Tequila but they will still at different times during the year thats for sure!



Raijiv -

Chiquita -

Nahla -

Zia -

Zena -

Charlie Brown and Snoopy -

Aysha -

Tequila - 

Chandru -

Lola -

Casper -

Diamond -

Winter Construction Updates

21st February 2012

It has been a while since the last update but that doesn't mean any less work has been done or the cameras have stopped clicking, so here is an update to show what has been going on over the winter period.

With the zoo being more a seasonal business, running at full speed in the spring and summer months, we take full advantage of the quieter times in winter to get some construction done. The main project this winter has been a refurbishment of the Tiger Sanctuary area of the zoo.

In 2010, a new set of tiger bedroom accommodation was made, a significant upgrade from their previous bedrooms. The new bedrooms are positioned at one end of the tiger sanctuary and are directly connected to two of the enclosures there. However one of the other enclosures down the other end of the tiger sanctuary was still only connected to the old bedroom area. Two goals were therefore present here - 1. To connect the far enclosure to the new bedroom block and 2. To knock down the old bedroom block that was now redundant and taking up space. This will now allow for enclosure extensions and additional visitor viewing areas.

To do this a fenced off walkway has been constructed through the middle of two of the enclosures to connect the farthest enclosure. This new interconnected system also means we can freely rotate the cats around into different enclosures in a daily basis, vastly increasing the amount of space they effectively have as well as providing very interesting enrichment in the form of the smells left behind by the previous occupants - the tigers will be able to get to know each other even better! These refurbishments apply to the tigers Lola, Chandru and Rajiv.

Below are some before and after photos to show visually what's been going on....

....but it wouldn't be a true blog update without any animals! So to make this update more palatable I have sandwiched the construction photos with some shots of the wonderful Mr. Fox. that I mentioned I would get some photos of (in a blog update from about 6 months ago! - I can only poke fun at the frequency of these updates currently!)

Turns out Mr. Fox doesn't mind a good pose - just like the most of the cats at the zoo!

Tiger Sanctuary Refurbishment

The solid wall between 2 enclosures at the tiger sanctuary has now been removed so that the cats can now see each other again. Whilst this refurbishment has been going on Lola and Chandru have been living temporarily in two other enclosures where they can see each other and this has lead to a prolific amount of chuffing (chuffing is the tiger friendly welcoming greeting, a strong indicator that the cats are enjoying each others company), and we hope they will continue to enjoy seeing each other once they have been moved back into these enclosures:

There is also now a walkway for the tiger in the far enclosure to walk down to reach the new bedrooms (in this shot from ontop of the new bedrooms, the old green bedrooms at the end are still standing but these are being demolished currently to finished connecting the new bedrooms to the far enclosure):



(a view down the new walkway towards the new bedrooms)

The wall came down...

Then the old bedrooms started coming down...

With more space, there is now a small extension to the two tiger sanctuary enclosures, always good!...

A view of the new bedrooms. Now with connecting tunnel to far enclosure and additional security area for the cat to go through to give increased safety to keepers operating in the enclosures as well as benefits from a veterinary stand point.

Then more of the rest of the old bedroom block is coming down to make way for more visitor viewing space and the rest of the connecting tiger walkway...

First row of bedrooms knocked down! (Brandishing some of the tools that did the job - I spot a sledgehammer, a crowbar and one of those big pneumatic drills!)

An unnecessary shot, but I would like to use this space to express my delight at the removal of the most ridiculously short beam of wood in the zoo that I used to bang my head on every morning! Here I stand in the spot where it used to be - who's laughing now!!

Meanwhile..

Whilst all this has been going on, as I mentioned, Lola and Chandru have been moved to temporary enclosures where they are in full view of each other (previously they had that solid wall between each other that has now been taken down for when they move back) and have been getting on very well! They often like to stay next to the other and do a lot of chuffing! Here are some shots of them looking cosy....

(p.s. check out the size of Chandru next to Lola! Chandru is an approximate 145kg cat at the last weigh in compared to the approximate 110kg Lola)

One more of Mr. Fox:

We didn't get any snow here in Sandown on the Isle of Wight this past winter, though I know most of the country did. We were somewhat  looking forward to seeing some snow however, as it always make for a striking photo. Oh well, maybe Mr. Fox will get his first snow fall next year!

Lola's 14th Birthday; Halloween and Georgie's run for tigers

As always, there a lot to update about in the few weeks since the last update.

Lola's 14th

It was tigress Lola's 14th Birthday on the 27th of October this year. She was given a few extra treats, including a few presents as seen in the photo, such as some Rainbow Trout. Though expensive, Lola gave a reponse of 'if it aint broke dont fix it' and hesitantly tucked into this unusual food item, though looking like she would have prefered a big slab of her favourite meat. She enjoyed the attention she got from the zoo visitors that day as they were all there to admire her.
Still looking very youthful, firey and athletic, 14 is a relatively old age for a tiger, a wild one at least. In captivity, we would like to see Lola live a very healthy life with us and possibly reach 20 or so.
We did also take a moment to remember her sibling, of whom it would have also been a birthday for, Sultan who we lost earlier in the year, as he too was a fine cat and won't be forgotten.

Halloween



Of course it was Halloween at the end of the month and I'm glad to say the staff at the Isle of Wight Zoo were very forthcoming in setting up all sorts of halloween treats and activities for the animals and around the zoo, really getting into the spirit of it. Most of the animals had at least to step up to the challenge to get their food out of a pumpkin and other had a few other ideas thrown their way.

Here's Chiquita looking especially scary whilst defending her treat filled pumpkin:

This pumpkin has to be commended for having survived in such good shape, unlike the rest of it's companions who entered the cat enclosures, and is seen her posed with twins Diamond and Aysha.

Of course it was not just the cats who recieved halloween goodies, the primates did as well as the small mammals such as our colony of Degus, who enjoy nibbling on a pumpkin for a short time before must be removed to prevent them from over indulging too much! It was quite comical to watch how many degus could actually squeeze themselves into this pumpkin...

All members of the zoo staff dressed up and were happy to pose with their halloween craftmanship:

It wasn't just pumpkins that were used. Zia was visited by a flying bat which in good will, decided to fill it's insides with meat! This was lowered over the top of her enclosure via the feeding pole and Zia managed to jump up and swat the bat out of the sky for her reward!

Of course the primates wern't scared of anything as long as they knew that food was eventually coming their way!

Diamond tries to use his nose to try and work out if this dyed porridge mix is actually real blood...

Diamond still being fooled by the fake blood, but it does look real!

Georgie's Great South Run



 Tour Guide Georige, successfully ran the 10 mile Great South Run recently in support for the tiger conservation charity we support Global Tiger Patrol! She raised a significant amount of money that can now be put towards our substantial pledge to the charity for this year. Well done Georgie, the wild tigers of India thank you!!