See also Melbourne Zoo page on this Blog
In my research I found that the London Zoo was probably the first official zoo to have a snow leopard when it got one from Bhutan in 1891. By the early 1900’s New York, Berlin and Moscow also had snow leopards.
This photo from the Wildlife Conservation Society shows a snow leopard at Bronx Zoo in 1906. At this time all these animals would have been captured from the wild. We can imagine that the lives of these animals would have been quite sad, not only the standard of their environment, that is being kept cages but also the lack of knowledge about how to look after them and feed them.
Today the quality of life for snow leopards in zoos has improved greatly. The Zurich Zoo opened this spectacular snow leopard exhibit in 2002. It has a huge area, with rocks and scree and ledges. You can see the way people have to take stairs to the top viewing area how large it is and that it almost mimics the snow leopard’s habita in the Himalayas. Thank you Zurich Zoo, we’ve come a long way from 1906.
Today many zoo environemnts, while not all as state of the art as the Zurich Zoo, offer physical spaces that are reasonable size with natural vegetation, rocks, trees and lots of enrichment activities. Knowledge about their behavior, feeding, mating etc is such that snow leopards breed successfully in zoos all over the world. Almost all cubs born are mother-reared, an indicator of good adaption to their zoo environment. Also Zoo’s no longer take snow leopards from the wild unless they are individuals that have been captured from poachers and hunters and can’t be returned to their natural environment.
While we all hope and work towards keeping the snow leopard alive in the wild there’s no doubt that zoo populations also have their role in helping preserve this rare species from extinction.
How many snow leopards in US Zoos?
The two younger adult snow leopards in Melbourne Zoo, Leon and Meo recently produced two cubs (born Dec 2008), much to the delight of the keepers and the many snow leopard sponsors.