Nice picture! I really like the background. It's so much more natural to see the sky behind a snow leopard instead of a forest like the old exhibit. I'm also glad that Tiga is finally getting used to her new surroundings and she'll probably end up liking her new exhibit much better than the old one.
I saw her several times on Saturday and several times today. She was sleeping in the shelter of shrubs within a few feet of the public, not hiding at all in my opinion. She was standing about one metre from me this afternoon, cat-chirping.
Early morning last Saturday she was definitely hiding in the shrubs. Many people walked by think the exhibit was not yet open. Then on Sunday and Monday, she was hiding in the corner of the exhibit. Sure it was was in bushes, but she's still trying to stay out of sight.
You think she chose to "hide" within a few feet of the public while there are several other places she could be out of sight. I have seen her napping under three different shrubs all close to fences, paying no attention to people and noisy kids only a few feet away. People couldn't see her because the habitat is well-suited to her colouring.
Would she hide in shrubs that are close to the public? Yes. Hiding in plain sight is what most animals do. Just because you can see her, doesn't mean she's not trying to hide. Blending in is most definitely hiding.
Also remember that she's still fairly new to the exhibit, so she would rather blend into the bushes close to public instead of hiding where no one can see her. She wants to see where the people are coming from.
Keeper told me that once she saw the limitations of how close people can get to her she started hiding in plain sight rather than hiding towards the back of the exhibit. Bushes are common hiding spots for her as she has such limited options in her exhibit. Now that she's getting used to the public and the exhibit, she walking around, which was something she wasn't doing before.
