Memphis Zoo Memphis Zoo Cat Country

Arizona Docent said:
As @BigNate says, yes Memphis Cat Country is definitely the real deal. The exhibits are pretty good, the collection is excellent, and they are all in one place. It's a big loop so when you get to the end you can just enter again and start over. I am a cat fanatic like you and this is one of my favorite exhibits. There are some other good areas of the zoo too, including some nice additions since I visited (grizzly complex and hippo complex).

When I visited many years ago they only had the three bengal/hybrid tigers (aka generic tigers). One is standard orange, one is white, and one is golden tabby, which is even rarer in zoos than white. Seeing all three together was great. I thought someone had posted on ZooChat that those were now gone and they only had Sumatran, but I guess I am wrong and they alternate them. (I must be confusing it with Nashville Zoo which traded out their white and orange hybrids for Sumatran). As someone else said if they do alternate make sure you confirm with the zoo which day the bengal/hybrids will be on exhibit. Either way just go and you will love it! Another favorite cat complex of mine, which someone else mentioned, is Philadelphia Zoo Big Cat Falls. The only problem there is the cheetahs and small cats are in different parts of the zoo.
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Thank you very much for the information and did sharing your experience!! That exhibit sounds awesome!! Can’t wait to visit eventually.
 
Arizona Docent said:
Here is a photo I uploaded of the three colors of tiger together:
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Wow that is one “money” photo. Tigers of all color in one shot. That is pure gold. I love it.
 
Just curious. Does anyone know why they decided to put meerkats, capybaras, and foxes (I believe bat-eared foxes?) in this exhibit complex? I don’t mind at all, because it gives me more species to see, but couldn’t they have found other appropriate space to keep with the “Cat Country” theme? Plus, they could have used that space for even more cats such as Canada/Eurasian/Iberian Lynx (very underrated cat, one of my favorites), Servals, and Ocelots. I’m not trying to nitpick the exhibit complex, because honestly it’s amazing, but I just want to know their reasoning behind the non-cat species in a cat complex.
 
Calvin Stevens said:
Does anyone know what happened to the ocelots in Cat Country? I know they were there until recently this year and I could not find a news article on what happened.
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The female died and the last male is 23 years old and lives off exhibit
 
BigCatConniseur24 said:
Just curious. Does anyone know why they decided to put meerkats, capybaras, and foxes (I believe bat-eared foxes?) in this exhibit complex? I don’t mind at all, because it gives me more species to see, but couldn’t they have found other appropriate space to keep with the “Cat Country” theme? Plus, they could have used that space for even more cats such as Canada/Eurasian/Iberian Lynx (very underrated cat, one of my favorites), Servals, and Ocelots. I’m not trying to nitpick the exhibit complex, because honestly it’s amazing, but I just want to know their reasoning behind the non-cat species in a cat complex.
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I've never visited but often this happens because spaces become available when animals pass and the zoo utilizes the now available space for animals it is appropriate for that they may have not had the exhibit space before. This happens quite often and the "theme" becomes second to giving the animals appropriate housing.
 
The Red Pandas, Capybara and Southern Screamers, and Meerkats all help to round out the loosely geographic grouping of the animals with species that I believe were already present in the zoo when Cat Country opened in the 90s (I don’t have a source but I think I remember a newspaper clipping in the Docent Library). The Bat Eared Foxes recently moved over from the Round Barn, I think at least partially to give them improved holding and a safer enclosure to breed in.

Fun fact on Cat Country, there were originally even more non-cats. There is a seemingly random rocky outcropping that looks like it might be an exhibit that is dominated by a large boulder, I believe it is to the right of the Capybara/Screamer yard but I may be mistaken. Anyway, that is an additional exhibit it, it historically was used to hold a Fennec Fox and in the past couple of years they tried the Klipspringer from the Round Barn over there. Neither species stayed there long as they would not spend time on the side of the large boulder the public could see, no matter what the keepers tried!
 
Echobeast said:
I've never visited but often this happens because spaces become available when animals pass and the zoo utilizes the now available space for animals it is appropriate for that they may have not had the exhibit space before. This happens quite often and the "theme" becomes second to giving the animals appropriate housing.
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That does make sense, giving animals appropriate housing should always come first. I do feel that in some ways having a theme is important, especially if the theme is a geographic region as you then have the ability to represent and stress conservation for multiple animals from the same geographic region. That’s just my opinion though.
 
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michaelarthur said:
The Red Pandas, Capybara and Southern Screamers, and Meerkats all help to round out the loosely geographic grouping of the animals with species that I believe were already present in the zoo when Cat Country opened in the 90s (I don’t have a source but I think I remember a newspaper clipping in the Docent Library). The Bat Eared Foxes recently moved over from the Round Barn, I think at least partially to give them improved holding and a safer enclosure to breed in.

Fun fact on Cat Country, there were originally even more non-cats. There is a seemingly random rocky outcropping that looks like it might be an exhibit that is dominated by a large boulder, I believe it is to the right of the Capybara/Screamer yard but I may be mistaken. Anyway, that is an additional exhibit it, it historically was used to hold a Fennec Fox and in the past couple of years they tried the Klipspringer from the Round Barn over there. Neither species stayed there long as they would not spend time on the side of the large boulder the public could see, no matter what the keepers tried!
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Thank you for the great and detailed insight! I guess I was wrong. It is better to have more animals than a bunch of empty exhibits, anyways.
 
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