Paris Update Flash News
NEW CATS IN TOWN
La Ménagerie, the zoo in Paris’s Jardin des Plantes, has three new feline residents, all of them male and all of them born in zoos in Poland. Aramis (below left), a stunning three-year-old black jaguar (Panthera onca), is only a temporary lodger and will move to the renovated Parc Zoologique de Paris when it reopens
a year from now. Like the other members of the only Panthera species in the Americas, he likes to swim and will have his own fish-stocked pool.
It is hoped that Tao, the two-and-a-half-year-old North China leopard (Panthera pardus japonensis) pictured at the top, will mate with Leila, a female of this threatened species who also lives at the Ménagerie.
Black Ear, a caracal (Caracal caracal) born on April 9, 2011, is a smaller cat whose species is also threatened in North Africa and the Middle East.
All three animals will benefit from the “enriched” environments provided for them at the Ménagerie, designed to imitate their natural surroundings, stimulate their senses (with the scents of other animals, for example, or by hiding their food so they can hunt for it) and keep them physically active. 57, rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris. Open daily, 9am-5pm. Admission: €10. Heidi Ellison
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