After resolving everyone’s curiosity, Fang Ye smiled and said, "Just now I ntioned how quick tigers are at climbing trees. How about I show you?"
The tourists beca excited imdiately, "I’ve never seen a tiger climb a tree before!"
"I saw it once when I ca here before, but I forgot to take a video. I have to rember this ti!"
After calling ng Shi over and having a word with him, ng Shi went backstage to fetch a piece of at and ca to the balcony on the second floor of the tiger exhibit.
He put the at into a sack, hung it on a hook, and operated the pulley system slowly turning it.
One could see a sack dangling and swinging in the air, moving towards a ten-ter-high tree trunk in the grassy area of the exhibit.
There were loops of rope around the tree trunk, which were there to help the tiger climb.
On the side with the pulleys, one could see nurous signs of wear on the ropes, as the tigers often climbed there.
Jiaojiao was originally lying lazily by the water, leisurely licking her paws. After a while, she seed to suddenly sll sothing.
With her mouth slightly open, sniffing the air, she looked towards the grassy area, saw the sack, and her amber eyes sparkled.
Getting up from in front of the water, she moved with poise and deliberate steps towards the tree trunk.
After a few steps, she broke into a trot, and just before reaching the tree, she leaped nimbly and pounced on it.
With a swipe of her front paws and a kick of her hind legs, she alternated movents of her paws and in less than two seconds, she had agilely and swiftly climbed to the top of the trunk, her powerful limbs hugging the trunk, muscles proudly on display.
She raised her head to bite the sack and began to pull down, wrestling with it.
Upon seeing this spectacle, the tourists, whether it was their first ti or not, couldn’t help but exclaim in amazent!
"Wow!!"
"Wow, that’s amazing!"
"That climbed the tree so fast, even faster than my running speed!" Experience more tales on .Côm
"It’s just like running up the tree, as if it were flat ground!"
"Where’s Newton? Get over here and do sothing!"
"My gosh, it climbed such a high tree in a few steps, it’s kind of scary!"
"It took only two seconds to climb up, if it were , I probably couldn’t manage in two minutes... "
"As a child, I heard stories about how the cat held back so skills when teaching the tiger, including not teaching it to climb trees. I believed that for many years."
"Before, seeing a leopard climb a tree was also pretty cool. If tigers are running up the tree, leopards are flying up."
Fang Ye said, "See how quickly it climbs? The tiger’s sharp claws can easily embed in the tree bark, helping them to stay on the tree! In fact, lions can climb trees too, but they’re not as adept as tigers.
Everyone, look at Jiaojiao’s agile figure and her athletic build.
How do we determine if a tiger is healthy or not? Ideally, its fur is well-grood, the eyes are bright, and the muscle contours are visible.
If the body is emaciated with no visible muscles, the fur is dull and unkempt, and the eyes are sunken and lifeless, it could be due to skimping on food or health issues. Of course, nowadays zoos generally don’t skimp on food costs, so more likely, the tiger could be ill, like South China tigers that are inbred.
If there is excess fat on the abdon, and the muscles in areas like the shoulders, belly, and hip bones are not distinctly defined, that ans the tiger is rather overweight. Being too fat is also not good; it could lead to cardiovascular and joint diseases.
In captivity, as there aren’t as many opportunities for activity as in the wild, we also need to provide enrichnt for the tigers to keep them both physically and ntally healthy. We add obstacles to their food acquisition process to exercise them as they obtain their food."
In so zoos, making tigers climb trees is turned into a form of entertainnt. A piece of at is hung on a rope, swinging back and forth, and a group of tigers below watch on—it’s purely playing gas with the tigers.
Strictly speaking, it can be considered enrichnt, but visitors definitely don’t see it that way.
In Linhai Zoo, this sort of at hung on tree trunks as enrichnt isn’t an everyday occurrence, and like other enrichnt activities, it’s rotated. anwhile, animal keepers also provide explanations, telling visitors the significance of enrichnt.
As they were speaking, Jiaojiao tugged the burlap sack into her mouth, glanced down below, shimmied down a bit, then her body curved as she swiftly changed her front paws’ position, pushing off the tree trunk with her back legs and bringing her front paws together, stretching her arms.
She dived gracefully from the air like a diver, with an elegant posture.
Mouth holding the burlap sack, tail fluttering behind, she landed steadily on the grass.
The visitors couldn’t help but clap raucously!
"So cool! Insanely cool!"
"If this were in the Olympics, it would definitely win several gold dals."
"Worthy of being my favorite big tiger."
Ice Cake followed Jiaojiao eagerly and ran over, gazing up with longing eyes, also wanting a piece of the action!
After Jiaojiao pulled down the burlap sack, she held it down with one paw and used her sharp teeth to tear at the sack, quickly ripping it open.
Several pieces of at fell out!
Ice Cake leaned in, squeezed up to Jiaojiao’s mouth, picked up a piece, and began eating contentedly.
Jiaojiao gave Ice Cake a look, not making any fuss about it.
In her eyes, Ice Cake was still a little tiger.
Otherwise, even if they were friends or siblings, after tearing down the at, they would take it to a corner to eat, not sharing it.
Animal keepers would also place food separately in the exhibits, so each tiger could find sothing to eat on their own, to prevent fights.
Fang Ye watched this scene and couldn’t help but smile.
As he prepared to leave, another visitor caught up with him—it was the girl with the ponytail from before.
Ponytail said, "Director, I still have questions!"
Fang Ye replied kindly, "Go ahead."
Ponytail asked, "So people online are really annoying. Even when you say that as long as we know the proper way to interact, tigers aren’t dangerous, they still completely disagree with coexisting with tigers. They say to release the tigers into your ho, let the do-gooders take care of them. How would you explain to these kinds of people?"
Fang Ye laughed and said, "That’s quite normal, actually. There’s nothing much to explain.
When we talk about biodiversity, humans are also diverse. Like one ti at the wolf exhibit, I ntioned that wolves won’t attack humans without cause, and there’s no need to be afraid if you encounter them in the wild; you could even greet them. Right away, so people frowned and walked away.
So people will accept and understand your explanation, others have deep-seated views that won’t change easily.
But whether they want to accept it or not, coexisting with animals is an objective reality.
It’s not like humans can draw a boundary, set aside a conservation area, and say this is your territory, animals, stay there and keep out of our way.
Nature isn’t sothing humans can tailor-make. Wherever there’s water, forests, and shrubbery where humans live, common raccoon dogs, wild boar, foxes, tigers, and even elephants will appear near human habitats, following the natural order of things. Tapping away on a keyboard, feeling danger, not wanting to coexist doesn’t change this fact.
Take wild boars, for example, in Barcelona, in Berlin, there are thousands of them. What do you do, kill them all? Can you finish them off? If not, they’ll spread to your vicinity. And if they are all killed, what happens to the ecosystem? Many countries, many cities, are accepting a certain level of coexistence."
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