Animal Diaries Archive

Cheetah walks in the Zoo

25 August 2006

If you have visited Australia Zoo recently you were probably fortunate enough to have seen our gorgeous cheetahs on display in the Tiger Temple with their handlers. Well, the tigers have had enough and they have reclaimed the Tiger Temple for themselves! Instead of viewing our cheetahs in the Tiger Temple, you will now be able to see them walking through the Zoo at various times during the day with their handlers. Our four cheetahs love getting out for their daily walks and their handlers love talking to our guests about them. We often do training with the cheetahs in the Zoo using milk or meat to highlight some of their natural behaviours, as well as showing our guests how our training enables us to carry out basic vet care without sedation. The Zoo walks are a great way for you to get up-close to these magnificent endangered cats and also provide an exciting experience for our cheetahs.

Our new off-display cheetah compound is currently under construction and we hope it will be ready for the cheetahs in the near future. The cheetah compound will have four large enclosures, each with its own purpose and design to keep the cheetahs enriched and stimulated. The compound will also include a cheetah run with a lure system that allows the cats to run at full speed in a large, open space. Once the compound is complete we hope to start breeding with our two pairs of cheetahs. When finished, the cheetah compound will have the capacity to hold up to 14 cheetahs.