Tigers, Lions, & Leopards OH, MY! (Big Cats)

BeardsleyZooFan said:
TeaLovingDave- I thought Sacramento's Margay died?
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I wouldn't know either way, not being based in the USA :p
all my posts on the subject of carnivorans held in the USA are with the caveat my main source is the large quantity of ISIS records I copied from their site in Feb 2012, before said records were removed from public access.

As such, these records are 8 months out of date even if correct at the time of my copying them, and some will doubtless have been out of date even then.

It's just pure chance it has mostly been Americans asking questions which I can answer with the records as yet ;)
 
Collins Exotic Animal Orphange, MS, USA has at least one Jungle Cat as of 2004 (severly outdated information, though). I believe some Kodkod are found in South American zoos. I think at least 1 Spanish zoo showed Iberian Lynx to the public. As of 2005, BREC's Baton Rouge Zoo in LA had a Margay and Houston Zoo had one as of 2009 (again, outdated info.) Europe, I believe, is the continent taking care of Asian Lions. Europe, in my opinion, does a lot better in their breeding of endangered Big Cats then America does in terms of the species they're breeding.

I don't think any zoos outside of Borneo have the Sunda Clouded Leopard and I don't think Bay Cats can be found in captivity (except mabye in Borneo). Are Iriomote Leopard Cats found in any Japanese zoos still? Are there any Leopard Cats left in the U.S. at all?

BeardsleyZooFan & Arizona Docent- Thank you for appreciating my thread. Glad I asked that unrelated leopard question on Beardsley Zoo News!!:D
 
Most of the margays in the US have died - maybe even all by now. If not, there are only one or two left - really sad.

Jungle cats can be found in the private sector - I photographed a black one at a breeder in Florida years ago and their website is still up so I think they are still breeding.

Guignas (aka kodkods) are in one private institution in Chile which recently had the first ever breeding of the species in captivity.

A bornean bay cat is purportedly held (illegally I assume) by a wealthy asian gentleman on his estate.

African golden cats are (according to two ZooChat sources) held in private facilities in South Africa and Gabon.

Andean cats have never been in captivity as far as I know and likely never will be. (However small cat researcher Jim Sanderson has seen them in the wild - he has the only clear photos - and he is a friend of mine and I am sure if I ever had the means I could go down to Chile with him in hopes of sighting one).

Marbled cat is in an off-show breeding center in the UAE (name escapes me) and on show at a zoo in Thailand (Nakhon Ratchasima I think).

Jaguarundi used to be in the US - was phased out by the AZA - and now they may want to phase them back in. Felid TAG lists them as a phase-in species and I had a long talk with one of my zoo keepers who went to Felid TAG this year and she said they did discuss it.
 
Arizona Docent said:
Marbled cat is in an off-show breeding center in the UAE (name escapes me) and on show at a zoo in Thailand (Nakhon Ratchasima I think).
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I believe the UAE collection no longer has them - Wikipedia cites this private collection as being listed as holding a pair in the November 2010 update of the ISIS records, however my copy of the records from February 2012 shows no ISIS collections with the species.

One mystery I hope to one day get to the bottom of is that three European collections claim to have held Andean Cats in the past:

Hannover in 1930
Leipzig in the 1960's
Rotterdam in the 1940's

This is highly strange, as until recently very few live photographs existed of the species - this situation having been remedied by Jim Sanderson in the past decade - and if individuals had been around in Europe, one would assume photographs would have been taken, if only by the zoo.

I'd quite like to look into what these zoos actually held someday.
 
That's good about the Jaguarundi. I think they should have a small breeding compund for Andean Cats in the Andes (along with other endangered Andean species).

We need to phase-in more cat species (a lot of other species as well).

How about Leopard Cats? Are they still in U.S. zoos?
 
ThylacineAlive said:
How about Leopard Cats? Are they still in U.S. zoos?
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With the usual caveat.....

Exotic Feline Breeding Compound in California has 0.1 Prionailurus bengalensis

This is outside of the USA, but Mountain View Conservation & Breeding, British Columbia has 2.0 Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis - purebred Indochinese Leopard Cat

This collection also holds 3.1 Prionailurus bengalensis euptilurus - the Amur Leopard Cat

This, of course, does not rule out private breeding of the species.
 
Iberian Lynx is kept in Spanish and Portuguese breeding centres, and in Jerez Zoo (off-show). There´s almost no chance of Iberian Lynx ending up in the US. Unless a very rich guy came to the iberian peninsula and showed a large amount of money...

As this is not only about US Felines, what are the zoos with the best collection of big cats, besides "Le Parc de Felins"?
 
filipinos said:
As this is not only about US Felines, what are the zoos with the best collection of big cats, besides "Le Parc de Felins"?
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Never heard of "Le Parc de Felins", what does it have?

The Exotic Feline Breeding Compound in Rosamond, California has one of the best cat collections in the U.S. that I know of.
Exotic Feline Breeding Compound Gallery

They have Amur, Persian, and North Chinese Leopards. Also, Geoffrey's Cat and Jaguarundi. The exhibits aren't the best but they do great breeding work and only give cats to AZA zoos (as far as I know of).
 
Are their white tigers pure Bengals or mixed. Also, is there a chance that their black leopards are pure Indians or Indochinese.
 
ThylacineAlive said:
Are their white tigers pure Bengals or mixed. Also, is there a chance that their black leopards are pure Indians or Indochinese.
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As with all other "Bengals" outside India, they are mixed.

Their black leopards won't be pure, I suspect. PDF holds a number of forms of leopard:

Amur Leopard (Far Eastern Leopard)
Leopard (no spp)
Iranian Leopard
Sri Lankan Leopard

Other big cats held:

Amur tiger
Katanga lion
Asiatic lion
Indochinese Clouded Leopard
Jaguar
Malayan tiger
Sumatran tiger
Tiger (no spp)
Transvaal lion
Snow leopard

Small cats held:

Amur leopard cat
Arabian sand cat
European wildcat
Northern lynx
Fishing cat
Indochinese leopard cat
Jaguarundi
Canadian lynx
Caracal
Geoffroy's Cat
Scottish wildcat
Pallas' cat
Gordon's wildcat
South-east Asian golden cat
Ocelot
Puma
Jungle cat
Bobcat
Serval
Siberian lynx
Sri Lankan rusty-spotted cat
South African cheetah
Southern caracal
Tibetan golden cat
Yucatan margay
Oncilla
 
Wow:eek:!!!!!!!
That's almost every cat species. They just need the Kodkod, Iberian Lynx, Flat-Headed Cat, Bay Cat, Andean Cat, and Black-Footed Cat.
 
Not quite, they're missing a good few more than that!
 
Oh yeah there's also the African Golden Cat, Sunda Clouded Leopard, Marbled Cat, Margay, Chinese Mountain Cat, Colocolo, Pantanal Cat, and the many subspecies of felines. Still, a very impressive collection. One that would be very hard to match. If I ran it, though, I wouldn't have anything that was as genetic as Black Leopards and White Tigers, I'd have to have pure Bengals (even if I had to have them imported from an India Zoo) and Indochinese Black Leopards (or Indian).
 
They do have margay. Also, chinese mountain cat is no longer considered a full species, but rather a subspecies of wildcat (although I am sure this is still being debated).

There are probably a few leopard cats in private collections in the United States. I would think some bengal cat breeders still have them.
 
Arizona Docent said:
They do have margay. Also, chinese mountain cat is no longer considered a full species, but rather a subspecies of wildcat (although I am sure this is still being debated).
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Well, there's still some debate on how many tiger species there are as well. :)
 
JBZvolunteer said:
Say it ain't so!! The simplest explanation is that it is heaven on earth for arizonadocent!!
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JBZvolunteer- After doing some research on it, it's heaven on Earth for me, too. All they need is pure Bengal Tigers and Black Leopards, African Forest Elephants, Sumatran Rhinos, New Guinea Singing Dogs, and pretty much everyother rare species:p. A Thylacine would be pretty nice, too.

jbnbsn99- Aren't they considered the two extinct island subspecies as a different species (why isn't the Sumatran included then?) splitting the species into Panthera Tigris (Bengal, Caspian, Sumatran, Indochinese, Sumatran, South China, Malayan, and Amur subspecies) and Panthera Sondaica (Javan and Bali subspecies). Where does the Trinil Tiger (Panthera Tigris Trinilensis) fit into all of this?
 
filipinos said:
Well, that looks really bad. Le Parc de Félins is much much better than that.
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They actually have a really great and successful breeding record. The reason the exhibits are like that is because they have too many cats and not enough exhibit space (which is still not an excuse).
 
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