Is this zoo in someone's backyard? It is all wire and wood, full of tiny, crappy cages, and even sells some of its animals! Unfortunately I'm not even that surprised...
Agreed with Snow Leopard, it's very good of them to take these animals in but are they trying to find somewhere else to take these cats in, they clearly dont have the space or the factilities and the enclosure is awful.
There are worse enclosures in the world. the floor isnt just concrete for example. the cat has a sufficient sized in door area. this picture also shows about two thirds of the enclosure. to be fair they have utilised the space given by having logs giving more of a 3D aspect.
The leopard is quite terratorial. i only had to walk up to the cage for him to pounce at me (picture up later) im not an animal behaviorist so i dont know if that was down to stress or the fact that leopards are very aggresive as big cats go.
Leopards are pretty aggressive as a rule. And you must learn that a lot of people on here think a cage with mesh automatically equals a bad enclosure. Personally, I'm not going to judge as I can't see the whole cage, but it looks to be a decent height at least.
Indeed Leopards are pretty aggresive as a rule but it depends on the individual leopard. With this being a Rescue Centre I do not know where the leopard came from but that might have something to do with it.
In all honesty this enclosure is not too bad,
- It has sufficient climbing oppurtunities (They have done a fair bit within this small space)
- It does not have a concrete floor as has allready been discussed.
- It is also a very fair height as Leopard Enclosures go and the space given by the great height has been used.
The only major thing I can find wrong with this Leopard Enclosure (And I have seen most in the UK) is the space and lack of cover and privacy from the visitors.
If it was to be extended with more vegitation and more cover provided it would be alot better.
This enclosure is very simple and cheap something that can be very easily critisised but it offers height,climbing oppurtunities and still has grass in it which in my opinion is alot better to piles and piles of mock rock. With all of the things in this enclosure hiding places can be found which is very important to such a secretive species.
For a 'Rescue Center' It really is not too bad but with a few renovations such as extension and maybe some more planting it would be alot better and very good. The concept of this enclosure lets not forget is from the Aspinall Parks and they have had tremendous succes with them - the only things lacking from what they have is the space and the cover, both of which can be sorted easily but dont forget in small places like this money for this kind of thing is quite hard to find.
I freely admit to not having seen this enclosure in person, however from this photo (and, as has already been pointed out, not much is hidden) I would disagree that there are enough climbing structures for such an arboreal cat. From this, there appears to be just a few logs and planks and, of those, only one actually makes use of the - in my opinion, not very significant - vertical space. For this reason, I consider a comparison to the aspinall cages to be unfair as they actually provide ample height and climbing structures which this exhibit does not (or, at least, to nowhere near the same extent).
I didnt mean to compare, I was saying that the concept of this enclosure is much more like the Aspinall Enclosures rather than that of say somewhere like Colchester for instance.
I agree having looked again There was not as many climbing oppurtunities as I thought.Even 1 or 2 logs in an enclosure such as this can offer the animal a very different outlook around their enclosure.
I will also say my comments are only from observations of photo's of this enclosure.
