January 9, 2016. This is the indoor viewing area (indoor for people, not tigers). Left side is Sumatran and right side is Malayan, although I am not sure if they switch them sometimes.
January 9, 2016. This is the indoor viewing area (indoor for people, not tigers). Left side is Sumatran and right side is Malayan, although I am not sure if they switch them sometimes.
Great photo of what appears to be an outstanding viewing area for the pair of tiger exhibits. However, I see that the fencing is quite prominent at the rear of each exhibit and that surprises me as Florida has such a humid, tropical climate. I was expecting there to be low shrubs or short, hotwired trees (with a fence overhang) along the back of the enclosures.
On a side note, what did you think of the jaguar exhibits? Jacksonville is a great zoo for a cat fanatic!
What you see here is perhaps one third of each exhibit. They form a long shape that you can walk along, the other two thirds being outside (for visitors - all of it is outside for tigers). However the long shape is along the width of the visitor area while the view for visitors from the front of the exhibit to the back is fairly short. This means fencing is seen all along. The start of the left exhibit is a 90 degree corner with a glass area that does allow a view of the entire length (to get non fence photos).
However the fencing I think is intentional because directly behind it is a mesh tunnel running the length that additional tigers have access to. So you may see another tiger walking the back corridor while you see one in the main yard. This tube at the front end of the exhibit goes up and into a fenced in log directly over visitors head. I will post a photo of this view shortly.
Perhaps the choice of open fencing (rather than planting it into invisibility) is to allow the eye to take in a deeper landscape and forget that the actual enclosure is small. If there were a wall of rockwork or even hedging one would only see the smallness. Of course, no one would be "fooled" into thinking the enclosure is larger than it is, but psychologically it would feel bigger.
And, of course, in this exhibit complex, the animals have lots of horizontal space and a variety of spaces rather than one large area that is all the same, so some trade-offs were made for animal care and stimulation, visitor viewing, and illusory space vs. usable space.
At least that is what I suspect from seeing the photo.
