MissouriGreen

Earlier this week I made a mid-day visit to the zoo to see our five newest St. Louis citizens: the five new Amur (Siberian) tiger cubs. They're only allowed out a couple of hours a day, but in that time they manage to cover ever inch of their not small habitat at least a dozen times.

The habitat is viewed from above, as the side view is blocked by the zoo train. Needless to say, the numbers of people were many and access to get a clear photo, limited. However, you don't have to have a good photo when you're taking pictures of tiger cubs.

This is Missouri's week for tigers, but not all the tiger tales are happy ones.

Today, the St. Louis Zoo will introduce five Amur tiger cubs to the public for the first time. The Amur tiger, also known as the Siberian tiger, is one of the rarest tigers in the world. At one time, they numbered only about 50 in the wild. Thankfully, rigorous conservation has increased this number to close to 500 tigers in the Amur district in Russia.

Breeding programs like the one for Amur tigers at the St. Louis zoo also help add to the numbers. Unfortunately, though, Siberian tigers raised in captivity don't typically survive when released into the wild. The only hope for conserving the wild Siberian is to maintain strict conservation.

The St. Louis Zoo is an accredited and highly respected animal preservation center, but the same can not be said about two other animal parks in the state, also in the news this week because of tigers. The tales from these two parks, though, are not happy ones.

In Branson, a 16 year old is in critical condition after being *attacked by three tigers while he was in the cage taking photographs for visitors.

I am amazed that this park would encourage its employees to enter a tiger enclosure just to take a picture for some idiot tourist. I hope the young man lives and sues the park for everything it owns. And I hope our state closes this park down.

Not as much, though, as I hope it closes Wesa-A-Geh-Ya, near Warrenton. The day before the Branson attack, a tiger jumped a fence at Wesa-a-Geh-Ya and attacked a worker cleaning her cage. The worker lost his leg below the knee, but is expected to survive. The animal farm people actually tried to cover up the nature of the attack, saying the man was attacked by pit bull, rather than a tiger. Of course, the attacked man is not supporting this lie.

This exotic animal farm has been under investigation in the past, and has had its public display license revoked. PETA and others have been critical of the establishment, because of the animal enclosures.

Supposedly the owner has offered to give up their animals and have them euthanized (animals from these establishments typically can't be integrated into zoo populations), but then has changed her mind. The decision should not be up to her, if her cages are such that animals can escape that easily.

I absolutely loath and despise these "roadside zoos" and believe, strongly, they should be closed. Most are poorly managed, and the animals badly cared for. I also do not agree with having exotic animals for pets. We have domestic cats and dogs needing homes that would make wonderful pets; exotic animal pets are nothing more than ego trips for the owners.

update The Branson folks are claiming that the tigers did not attack the boy. That they were trying to help him, after he fell and hit his head, which is why he has severe puncture wounds to his neck.

I hope I will be excused for greeting this with a great deal of skepticism.

A welcome break from the flooding occurred Saturday, June 14th, when one of the giraffes at the St. Louis Zoo gave birth to a baby in front of about 400 surprised zoo goers.

I wasn't there that day, but did go out the following Tuesday to take photos, including this one of mother and son.

The giraffes are in one of the mixed species habitats, sharing the space with a couple of gazelles and an ostrich. The other critters weren't sure about this new stranger in their space, but the ostrich, in particular, would follow the baby around.

The ostrich became a little too aggressive and a little too close and the mother giraffe moved alongside of the bird and kicked her legs straight out to the side, pushing the bird away from the baby. The bird wasn't hurt, but did get the message.

I walk at the St. Louis Zoo early in the mornings a couple of days a week. If I get there early enough, I beat both the crowds and the heat. It's an interesting place to visit, too, in the early mornings.

This week I reached the Red Rock region of the zoo just as the keepers were cleaning some of the habitats. In the Antelope Yards, the zoo creates mixed species habitats, typically combining one or two hoofed animals and a couple of different kinds of non-competitive birds. Big birds, too. In a couple of the exhibits, the birds are the largest animal.

When the keepers clean the habitats for some of the smaller animals, they don't remove the animals or the birds. I've never seen more than one keeper at a time cleaning, either. However, in my last walk, as I reached the second of the Speke's Gazelle habitats, I noticed two people cleaning rather than one. A few minutes watching and I discovered why.