What's the absolute farthest a lion or tiger can jump?

tigris115

tigris115

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
I'm making enclosures in Planet Zoo. Realistic ones so I wanna do some research. Every open moat for a lion or tiger seems to be about 6m long but I've read that a lion or tiger can jump about 11 meters. So does this mean most moats in zoos are too short if a cat is motivated enough? I know this can be an issue, especially with the San Francisco incident
 
There's multiple factors that go into how far they can jump, depending on height of the outer wall and the width of the moat, and also how much of a run the cats could get up. Body condition and age of the cat also make a difference. Cats being teased have been observed to jump additionally far due to adrenaline/frustration, as unfortunately observed in the San Francisco incident.
 
See, I know most zoo cats are fairly lazy but I worry because you could always get a really good specimen that just happens to feel like making the jump, resulting in a very bad day.
 
So, there is this old tale about Carl Hagenbeck, whether it's true or not... Nobody will know. But it's even included in his biography and told on the signage next to his statue.

When Carl Hagenbeck had the idea for the world's first big cat enclosure without bars, he asked himself the exact same question. He had previously bottle raised a Lion cub and started to teach him tricks including jumping over a vertical wall and from one platform to a second one to determine the jumping abilities. Legend says that the Lion named Truest managed to jump 5m distance. But Carl Hagenbeck took a good look at him and decided that he was probably not the sportiest lion ever and therefore built a 7m wide moat. Which ist still successful as enclosure barrier after 114 years.

So, long story short. I would go with 7m. And the wall on the visitor side a little higher than the one on the lion's side.
 
The idea is that it'd be like the Lion Terraces water moat in London. Basically, the moat distance is water and the area at the very end of the moat is a little tall so that the lion can't jump all the way out and if it put its feet at the bottom, it couldn't climb out.

 
The immediate thought I had on reading the thread title was the following set of images which did the rounds awhile ago.....

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