I wonder what the future of that exhibit is. Tigers weren't a good geographic fit to the area, but are one of the zoo's most popular species. Hopefully, if more Tigers are in the future, the zoo will acquire sumatran or malayan tigers so they have ones that are subspecific. If not a tiger, I wonder what else could be a replacement for that exhibit.
It’s sad to hear about Anala’s condition. I get nostalgic thinking about how excited I was when Luther and Anala were brought to the zoo after being rescued by USFWS in the early 2000s. After she passes, I expect FPZ to be tigerless for ~10 years, until the Asia complex starts being worked on (it’s currently slated to open in 2033, according to
the 2015 masterplan). According to some small diagrams on the masterplan timeline, all of Hooves and Horns (the area which encompasses Giraffe Savannah, Kalahari Kingdom, and Serengetti Crossing) is slated to become a major Africa complex, and as previously stated, Tigers would not fit geographically, so I expect that the species will be replaced.
I think the most likely replacement for the tigers is a lion exhibit expansion. The lions and tigers share the same holding building, so there is already easy access and chutes to transfer the lions between the exhibits. A lion exhibit expansion would also be welcome, because many people complain about the current exhibit’s lack of space (in part due to the moat). Lion exhibit alterations / expansions could also open up the possibility of breeding, given the extra space. However, breeding would probably necessitate getting different males, because their current males have a history of aggression when being introduced to other lions in the past.
If the zoo doesn’t go for the lion expansion idea, cheetahs could be another option. The zoo had cheetahs in the early 2000s in the current Hyena exhibit (the exhibit first had cheetahs, then painted dogs, then hyenas). The zoo also has a conservation history with cheetahs as a species, and I know that Chris Bartos, the curator of the entire Hooves and Horns area, has experience training dogs to track cheetahs in the wild. I’ve attached a video explaining the zoo’s cheetah conservation work below. I feel there could definitely be some strong interest there.
