Looks great but I do wish they'd soften its appearance with some more planting, boulders, a hillock or whatever. Its very 'unleopard-like' at present but potentially very good - I'm not knocking it.
It is pretty bare at the moment but hopefully the plants will grow-for example Lion country was very bare when first built and now its a fantastic encolsure.
The scale of the complex of enclosures for leopards at YWP is undoubtedly impressive but I think there is a lot of open space that a leopard is just not going to use. The enclosure is very exposed (which I am sure will improve over time) and offers little seclusion or opportunity to hide. When I was at YWP in June the leopard in this exhibit just paced at the viewing window.
The size is not the issue. I saw an enclosure based on similar concepts at a zoo in Tunisia - it was similar in size, if not a little larger, was fenced and open-topped. However, in the Tunisian zoo, the grass was tall and there were several large trees in the enclosure so the leopards could hide amongst the foliage with at least something over their heads to provide a degree of privacy. That said, they were still visible if not a little distant.
I don't understand why YWP didn't use a piece of land that included some trees - as they did with the tigers. There is no lack of such space there.
Despite what I aid above, I do tend to agree. I actually think a smaller covered enclosure enclosing trees or with scope for adding tree trunks etc, would have been preferable for this species. Examples of good (IMO) Leopard enclosures; Marwell, Cotswold, Cricket St Thomas(now closed) all cover considerably less ground area but the Leopards can use the enclosure dimensionally too.
