Soraya joins the gang

[Richard]

Dreamworld's just gotten their hands on another tiger, named Soraya, a 14-month old female Sumatran tiger, and it's set to debut October 30. For those that don't know, there are five remaining different subspecies of tigers. The odd thing is all of Dreamworld's other tigers are Bengal, and this one is a Sumatran. It's a great deal smaller than the Bengal tiger, so I'm not sure how it will affect the exposure to other tigers etc., if it does at all. They suggest that when breeding becomes a possibility (sexually mature at an age of three), they will get a male from another zoo in Australasia, so there's no cross-breeding going on obviously, and offspring are to be raised at Dreamworld until they're "required" overseas. There's a bunch more information in the press release. I'm not the sort who justs copy-pastes a whole press release, but if anyone's interested, I'll be happy to get some more specifics for them. Anyway, this is pretty interesting news, and I suppose these are the things that Dreamworld's counting on for a bit of extra attention over the next year.

[joz]

I think its good to see the park helping with the international breeding program (sounds corney doesn't it?). They've done some great work with Bengal Tigers, with the birth of 'Awsome Pawsome' some years back.