Wildheart Animal Sanctuary Isle of Wight Zoo Blog

[b3n]

Hi everyone,

I'm a keeper at the Isle of Wight zoo and I thought it would be good to try starting a blog to keep up with the happenings at the zoo. We have some beautiful cats as well as lemurs that make up the focus of the collection.

I am going to try and keep the blog updated daily (apart from tuesdays and wednesdays) and it will included a photo of the day with any luck.

I believe it's a great way to know more about the animals and their behaviours, personliites and of course hearing about their lives.

If anybody is interested in keeping up with this, it includes things often dicussed by zoo chatters such as animal transfers etc, then it can be seen at: Isle of Wight Zoo Blog

Many thanks, Ben

 

[JamesB]

A good blog so far

I know there have been lots of new exhibits in the past years for the tigers, are any more planned to open in the next few years? I always feel a bit sad when I see the smaller pens at the back of the zoo, am I right in guessing that the zoo's plan is to eventually give all the tigers large enclosures? I must admit, all the recent changes have been great and the zoo is finally getting a good reputation.

 

[b3n]

Thanks James,

Yes it would be great to see all the tigers in enclosures like the new ones based on Pench, Ranthambore and Kahna national parks. Those enclosures were a big investment and in the mean time before larger projects like this may devlop in the future, the plan for the tigers in what we call the 'Tiger Sanctuary' part of the zoo, which is the old part of the zoo, is to develop a system of connecting tunnels so that we can rotat our cats between each enclosure daily, which of course will be great for differentiating stimulating and all the scents left behind by the cats the day before etc.

In conjuction with this, the older enclosures will be linked up to new bedrooms. 1 block of 4 bedrooms is complete, whilst another lock of 4 bedrooms waits to be finished. At the moment one of the tigers Lola has access to a new bedroom and in the coming weeks we will be moving Chandru over from his enclosure (the one near the lemur land area) and putting him in the enclosure adjacent to Lola that will also link to the new bedroom block. This new enclosure has new platforms in it, Chandru will be happy to be near Lola and we will be able to rotate Lola and Chandru between each others enclosures. Personally as a keeper I am very much looking forward to these developments.

 

[TigerBoy]

Hi Ben.
It's been a while (2 years) since I jumped on a hovercraft to the Tiger sanctuary...
Exactly what cats do you have there at present?

 

[b3n]

Hi TigerBoy,

We have 8 tigers, 4 Lions (one white lion) and 2 Jaguars at present. Public feeds for the cats are at 2.30 and 4.30, always good to see.