mandrill exhibit (for now)

April 2, 2013. Our longtime mandrill exhibit (originally built as a leopard exhibit, but that was before I was in Tucson). Our second male died recently and we now have a lone female. She will be transferred to Phoenix Zoo within a week to pair up with two others for company. No word on what will go in here, but of course my dream would be a serval or caracal.

Arizona Docent said:

...my dream would be a serval or caracal.

Click to expand...

My dream is not meant to be (sigh). Ninety percent certainty that it will be ruffed lemurs (most likely black and white but possibly red). A few modifications to be done first (rockwork enhanced and smaller mesh over fencing).

Arizona Docent said:

My dream is not meant to be (sigh). Ninety percent certainty that it will be ruffed lemurs (most likely black and white but possibly red). A few modifications to be done first (rockwork enhanced and smaller mesh over fencing).

Click to expand...

I remember when I first visited this zoo in 1988 that they had a pair of servals in a cage by the African savanna exhibit.

Yes one of the docents that volunteers on Tuesdays with me happens to be the longest serving docent currently at the zoo (over 35 years). At this morning's daily meeting she brought some scrapbook pages with old photos of the zoo. One showed a serval (in a since demolished exhibit) and one showed a black leopard in the exhibit featured on this thread. She also had an aoudad on a small cliff, which I never knew we had.

@DavidBrown is that cage that held the serval still standing.

@UngulateNerd92 If you read the post above yours it says "since demolished." So no, it does not stand (and I never saw it since it was demolished before I arrived in Tucson).

Since we are on the topic of my dream of small cats at my local zoo, I will take this opportunity to remind everyone that fishing cats are slated to be part of the Asia expansion in 2022. This is assuming the project stays on schedule and is not pushed back due to the downfall in funding from Covid-19 closure.

@Arizona Docent

Sounds exciting! I've always loved Fishing cats - they're one of the duller felids on the outside but they are a really unique species

@Arizona Docent my bad, I didn't see that. What is in the spot now where that serval cage was?

@Arizona Docent did Ashwin Naidu have something to do with their plans to acquire Fishing cats?