We used to like the tigers the best but now I think they only have one left since the other one called Manninen died a few years ago. He was everybody's favourite. And he had a really funny name too. Manninen is a Finnish last name, the type that you'd give to a conventional, boring, maybe a bit slow character in a novel.
The best cats are the snow leopards though. They have a lot of them in Korkeasaari and they are also very succesful at breeding. They have also the pedigree books of all the snow leopards bred in captivity and they are leading the snow leopard preservation program. By 2006 116 snow leopards had born in Korkeasaari. I think that's quite awesome. Currently they don't have any cubs there though. Last year there were two in Ähtäri Zoo.
Once a year in the Fall they have a Cats' Night in Korkeasaari. I highly recommend. You go there in the evening and can stay until midnight. It's the best time to see the night animals. They are also fed then and you can watch them trying to get the meat from the toys and weird places they put the meat in to give the cats something to puzzle over. They also have all kinds of program and stuff, plays and lights and lectures. Once they showed cat movies and documentaries in an outside theatre, one sat on the cliffs in the darkness and they projected the movies to the big wall behing the bear castle. I wish they'd have that again, it was fun.
The otters also tend to come out more at night, I think, and they are a lot of fun to watch. Somebody told me that they are the only animals that play just for the fun of it. They are also known to slide down slopes in the snow in the winter.
Here are two otters at play. Other pics accompanied with stories here.
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