Never a fan of meshed cat enclosures, I am still impressed with what I see in these pictures from the jaguar exhibit at Jacksonville.
Two questions:
1. In your review you mention that there are more than one enclosure. How many are there?
2. You know that I am always interested in the size of an enclosure. So, would you please try and give me an estimation of the size of the individual enclosures? (I asked you this very question about the tiger exhibit at DAK. You answered that you had trouble measuring zoo exhibits in less than acres. But if so: 1/10 of an acre? 2/10 of an acre etc? I´ll do the square meter math myself. Please! Rough estimates will be enough to satisfy my curiosity...).
There are two Jaguar enclosures. There are also a couple of off-display pens, too. The one in the picture is bigger than 50x50 feet and at least 25 feet tall, remember vertical space is just as important. The other, bigger and longer enclosure is about 150+ (length) x 25 feet. Would you agree snowleopard?
The enclosure in the photo has been accurately described by okapikpr, and I felt that for the two cats in there it was too small and it had only a very tiny pool. However, the vertical space is superb and both cats used the ruined temple walkways to venture far up on the wall. The second jaguar exhibit is at least triple the size (150 feet or longer in length) and is probably the best that North American zoos can offer for jaguars. It has the huge log over the deep pool (filled with pacu and other fish) and there are tons of climbing opportunities and places to hide. My wife and I searched valiantly for at least 10 minutes before finding one cat sleeping at the back of the exhibit.
If you looked closely in the pool...you can see the original log that has over the pool. It fell into the pool and was later replaced with the log you see today.
