Behind the scenes with the big cats

Behind the scenes with our Amur Tigers

One of the experiences we offer here at Dartmoor Zoo is being a Big Cat Keeper for the day, providing people with a chance to work alongside the keepers in the daily routine for the big cats. It’s an all-day, hands-on experience getting as close to the big cats as is possible to get without being eaten!

The day starts at 8am in the Jaguar Restaurant where participants meet the keepers they’ll be spending the day with. It’s a chance to have a cuppa and go through all the important health and safety briefing that is necessary for getting behind the scenes with the big carnivores.

Then it’s off to the keeper’s yard to prepare food for the morning feed. Most of the cats are fed every other day to approximate their natural feeding habits in the wild where not every hunt would be successful making daily feeding rare. In the wild, once a kill has been made they would eat until they are fit to burst then rest for two to three days conserving energy for the next hunt. Lions are known for sleeping around 20 out of 24 hours!

The morning round can take around two hours making sure all the animals are in their enclosures, they are healthy and showing normal behaviour. At each enclosure the keepers give the participants all the background information on the animals from a keeper’s point of view. They learn all about the individual animal’s personality and to how they would live in the wild.

One thing to bear in mind when doing an experience like this is that it’s quite common to come into contact with poo, which can be a bit stinky! Also, dealing with large carnivores means dealing with large amounts of raw meat and, when the feeding is done, lots of bones.

The highlight of the day is assisting with the big cat talk for members of the public to watch in the afternoon. Participants help the keepers put out the cats’ meat, clean their enclosure, (that’s where the poo and bones comes into it) then stand back and enjoy the public talk by the Presentation Team.

At the end of a long, often tiring day, you get to take home a certificate to say you did a Big Cat Experience at Dartmoor Zoo, as well as lots of photos and memories of getting up close and personal with our amazing cats. Oh, and don’t forget the lovely keepers!

This is one of our most popular experiences and it never fails to impress. You can find out more about our Big Cat Keeper for a Day experience and see what visitors have to say about it here.

Kate Stone
Senior Keeper

Keepers' Snowy Week

This week at Dartmoor Zoo we have not escaped the heavy snowfall, icy roads and freezing conditions that have plagued the country. On Wednesday morning the treacherous driving conditions meant that many staff were unable to even get to the zoo. Hundreds of schools and offices in Devon have been shut for the last few days, but when animals are involved, life must go on as normal. They of course still need to be fed, watered, cleaned out and cared for, the same as every other day. Most of the keeping staff have made it in every day so far to do just this. Zoo keeping is hard work at the best of times, but this week that has been an understatement!

Water bowls have been freezing so hard that in some cases, keepers have been able to stand on them. As soon as we have broken the ice in every water bowl, they start to freeze up again. Although some of our animals, like the tigers and lynx are well adapted to these wintry conditions, many are not. For these species we have been providing extra large straw beds and heat lamps. Some, like the tapir, are being kept in overnight as well.

The biggest and least desired job every morning at the moment is breaking the ice on the Tiger Rock and Jaguar moats. In case you don't know, the moats are used instead of fencing on one side of each enclosure. Every day the ice gets thicker so we need to break it up first thing before we let the cats out. Normally the cats are out 24/7, but obviously this is not the best idea in these circumstances!

The keepers' favourite weapon is a long metal pole with a large bar on the end. It is very heavy and you can always tell who's done the cat round because they are collapsed over the table at break time!

Today is the first time since Tuesday that the van has been able to get to the main road (via the fallow field)! The drive is too slippery for any cars, which is one of the reasons why we are presently closed. As you can see from the video, it did need some help from the dumper on the way back, but we were running quite low on fruit and vegetables for our animals and so it was important to make the journey. The weather forecast for the weekend is more snow so we felt we had to take the opportunity to get some supplies in. Please telephone the zoo before you visit, to make sure we are open.

Boxing Day Photos

I did create a lovely slideshow for this but have experienced the usual technical problems with blogger! Anyway, as you can see our animals enjoyed their festive enrichment.

Boxing Day Bash!

Boxing Day is always a hightlight of the DZP calender. For those of you yet to visit on 26th December, the day is full of festive fun for our animals. We always receive lots of positive comments from our visitors who enjoy watching the animals' experience of Christmas. Well, this year is no exception and we have an exciting programme of events for the day.


11.00 The vervet monkeys have their Christmas party with crackers and presents

12.00 The bears enjoy their Christmas Dinner

2.00 The lions open their stockings
Followed by the tigers unwrapping their Christmas presents

2.45 A chance to meet and greet our reindeer: Donna, Comet and Blitzen

3.15 The otters recieve their Christmas gifts

With the exception of the reindeer meet and greet, each activity will be accompanied by a talk from a member of our education department. We hope you will be able to come and join us.

Stripe and Blotch enjoy the simple things in life

Well, it's taken so long to get videos onto the blog and now in one afternoon three have been accepted! The clips below show Stripe, one of our 8 year old Amur tigers, playing with a large cardboard tube covered in strong smelling spices. Stripe, her twin sister Blotch, and their younger brother Vladimir love anything they can rip up and destroy! For this reason we have to carefully consider enrichment we give them so they do not come to any harm.

We frequently use olfactory enrichment with the cats (enrichment which stimulates the sense of smell) because this sense is really important to them. In the wild, tigers would spend a lot of their time patrolling their territory and scent marking. In order to encourage this natural behaviour we put various scents in the enclosures and on enrichment items. Some of their favourites are catnip, curry powder, mixed spice and cumin. We also use herbs and perfumes. These give the animals something different to analyse and they then cover up the foreign smell with their own odour, either by rubbing themselves all over it or, of course, by spraying!

The videos were taken a few weeks ago, but these photos of Blotch and the new hanging boomer ball were taken on Thursday. This time four straps of fire hose were used as a sling and it was hung from a tree by a long chain. When the lions had it recently, it only had two straps and Solomon managed to pop the ball out and it rolled down the hill! Hopefully this won’t happen with the tigers because it will end up in the moat if it does, and the keepers do not enjoy trying to retrieve it from there!

Thursday was a feed day so we put the ball up while the tigers were in their houses. Vlad came out and got his food, sat down and ate it. Stripe came out and got her food, sat down and ate it. Blotch however, came out and played with the Boomer ball! We had to call her away to make sure she got her food and one of the others didn’t eat it.

Video update

You may remember in an earlier blog I explained that we were having some difficulties uploading videos onto this site. As it turns out, Blogger has been experiencing technical problems and the only answer seems to be plenty of patience and persistance! Unfortunately I am still unable to upload Josie's Birthday Party video but the service has begun to accept some of our other enrichment videos. These will be posted whenever possible! The first is below and shows Tazmin, our 13 year old Amur tigress. When she lived at Tiger Rock, Taz would often cool off in the moat up there; however, since her move to Tiger Ridge a year ago, the keepers haven't seen her using the pool in this enclosure at all. In an attempt to encourage her into the water we made a raft, chained it to two breeze blocks at the bottom of the pool and placed some of her meat onto it when she was fed. For several weeks we would return later in the day to find the meat gone so hoped for the best; then the following footage was taken.

Unfortunately, as can be seen in the clip below, Tazmin cleverly manages to keep her paws largely dry as she stretches and swipes to reach her meat. We have since tried lowering the level of the water and the raft whenever we clean the pool but so far she always finds a way to get the food - even if we use many small peices instead! There is a large boulder in one corner which would allow Taz to step down into the pool gradually but she remains unconvinced. Having said that, it is only quite recently that Vlad, Blotch and Stripe have started using the moat at Tiger Rock, and of course they moved at the same time as Tazmin. Perhaps she just needs a little more time...

Blotch tries to kill the Boomer ball

We thought you would like to see these photographs of one of our Amur tigers, Blotch, apparently attempting to drown and suffocate a large boomer ball! They were taken at lunchtime today. Tigers, unlike most other cats, enjoy water and Blotch was oblivious to the fact that she was also splashing guests in her excitement! We provide our animals with enrichment such as Boomer balls to challenge them and to encourage natural behaviours. Blotch appeared to be treating the ball like a prey animal and would not let her younger brother Vladimir, or her twin sister Stripe, too close to it! For a few minutes at a time Blotch would grapple with the ball and attempt to take it up onto the bank. If it slipped out of her grip she would reach out and pull it back in again and under control.

As mentioned in an earlier blog we hope to give the tigers a hanging boomer ball soon. They clearly provide a good workout, keeping the carnivores fit and mentally stimulated.