Category — Cats

Twigs snap. Leaves rustle. You get a prickly feeling on the back of your neck as you wonder whether someone, or something, is watching you, stalking you, hunting you. It’s an eat-or-be-eaten world and, in the Cincinnati Zoo’s new Cat Canyon exhibit opening next summer, you are the prey.

A fishing cat crouches in its Night Hunters exhibit. (Photo: Brian Jorg)

Cat Canyon will encompass and link up the new Night Hunters experience (opened in May 2011) with the former Tiger Canyon area and include new exhibits for cougars, tigers, and snow leopards. (The cougar exhibit actually opened already.) Cat Canyon provides an exciting, sensory adventure into the world of our great predators, the wild cats, while strengthening the Zoo’s commitment to the conservation of threatened species through education and scientific research in the wild and at the Zoo. [Read more →]

We’ve been collecting some great feedback from those of you who have experienced the new Night Hunters exhibit. Thanks to all who have shared their thoughts and advice via Facebook, blog comments, exit surveys, and so on. It is much appreciated and greatly helps us in being able to provide the best experience possible.

One of the major concerns that visitors have expressed is that it’s too dark. Yes, it is a nocturnal exhibit, but we certainly don’t want people stubbing their toes or losing their loved ones! We’ve added in more of the twilight blue lighting along the front hallway recently that should help with that. We’ve also added a bit more light to some of the darker exhibits such as the potto and Burmese python. [Read more →]

Last November, scientists from the Cincinnati Zoo’s Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW), traveled to the Beardsley Zoo in Connecticut to artificially inseminate “Kuma”, their 3-legged female Brazilian Ocelot. A similar procedure had been performed 2 years earlier, and “Milagre”, a beautiful female kitten was raised by her mother and transferred to another zoo. The November procedure, performed by Dr. Bill Swanson and Dr. Colleen Lambo, was also a success and on January 22nd, 2011, “Kuma” gave birth to another female kitten! Now 5 months old and quite a spunky little youngster, she is on exhibit with her mother at the Beardsley Zoo. [Read more →]