Archive for the 'Big cats' category

The Smithsonian, which is in United States of America the largest museum and scientific institution since 1846, recently published on-line a large collection of animal pictures taken by automatic cameras. They reveal a few unknown aspects of the animal behavior (when Man is not there to peep).

To support its own promotion, the Snow Leopard Conservation Fund freely shares tow of its nicest photo pictures of snow leopards. Notice that -for once- these are photos of free wild animals and they were not shot in zoos. Snow leopards are defintely having a hard time in the wild and its survival is defintely not certain.

This Canadian artist works on painted pictures whose realism is striking (most people often think they are photographs, at first) and it is quite pleasing to see the very natural and touching attitudes of most of the painted animals. See some of his big cats.

Denis Mayer Jr. web site

Iain MacArthur is an English artist drawing amazing animal sketches (see his web site). To attract you to it, I present here a only one hand-drawn sketch of a big cat:

A lion on a wall of death - Getty Images

Thanks to PierreD, here is a photo of a lion on a “Wall of Death”. These circus and fair attractions included a fast car rushing on a vertical circular wall. In some cases an animal (preferably a large predator like a lion) was in the car – or the side car.

If you know a little more about these, feel free to comment here. PierreD is very interested in whatever information you would have about the cars invovled (often Maruttis in India, but others too).

This happened in Turkey, in a zoo.

A tiger found a way to leave its cage to meet a neighboring lion. This was in Ankara zoo and the tiger thus demonstrated its superior strength. Or that the lion does not fight well when it is surprised napping after a meal.

There are still six tigers and two lions in the Ankara zoo.

Source: BBC.

Or how can a grass-eating prey keep its calm even among the most aggressive predators.

Sometimes, cats love more than others.

Pink panther true love

photo credit: jurvetson

King cheetahs are not so exceptional that you can’t see them in zoos (but you may have to travel to meet them). I wondered if it was possible to list of zoos of the world which have at least one of them in exhibition.

• DeWildt Cheetah Research Centre, in De Wildt (South Africa)
• Kapama Game Reserve (South Africa)
• Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo (Australia, NSW)
• Kgosi: animal ambassador from the Wild Cat Education & Conservation Fund in Occidental, California (USA).

Of course, such a list cannot be permanently up-to-date without the help of the readers of YLoveBigCats. Please, feel free to comment to add new locations (or tell when the last king cheetah of a zoo unfortunately died, as it happens sometimes).

Locations which previously had king cheetahs:

• Jama: Canberra National Zoo (Australia) – Was initially acquired from De Wilt Centre
• Singapore zoo in 2004
• Some king cheetahs have been spotted in 2005 around Tshukudu game lodge, in South Africa