I'm a little surprised they haven't been sent south yet to pair with potential mates. It's usually done by 6 months old. If they haven't been paired by a year old they likely will never be bred because of male aggression when not exposed to his mate very young. Parents Mingma and Pavarti have been exposed to each other since they were about four months old.
I do like seeing them in the old lion tailed macaque exhibit. So much more room for them to explore and more sights, sounds, sensations, and scents for them to be stimulated by.
In September when they were first on public view one of their keepers said there were no potential mates for them and unless a suitable male was born very soon they would not likely be bred.
In my opinion the exhibit is lacking in raised structures. At nine months they should have much more than this one elevated place. In fact they keep pushing each other away from the spot where the rear one is sitting. Think of the hammocks, raised logs, hollow stump in the indoor exhibit.
Come to think of it I don't recall hearing of a lot of clouded leopards being born last year. Makes sense. They can make a many breeding attempts as they want in the SSP but if you don't have the enough of a gender balance to the right parents you end up losing out on potential breeders much faster with clouded leopards than with almost any other species.
It would be nice to see the girls head to another Canadian zoo this year so that they can help showcase their beautiful species to other Canadians.
The exhibit is far from perfect you are very right. It was a quick conversion to capitalize on the cubs. They could spruce it up and do some modifications for it to better suit the girls needs now that they are subadults. Once they go it would be nice to see the exhibit modified further and house Mingma and Pavarti in the future. Build a bigger house with possible indoor viewing for the winter months and it wouldn't have to cost a fortune. That why when the Malayan Woods is ripped down we can still keep a great species.
