jaguar meet-and-greet

photo by Animal Curator Brad Fichter

photo by Animal Curator Brad Fichter

The Zoo’s jaguars had their first together time this week. The female, originally from Boston, has been at our Zoo since early 2007. She turned 3 in March. The male, originally from Milwaukee, has been at the Zoo since mid 2008. He turned 5 in January. With dangerous animals like jaguars, introductions must proceed very slowly. After the male went through a quarantine period, he was moved up to AMAZONIA where the female was already residing. Staff figured out and tracked the female’s reproductive cycle because females are most receptive to meeting males when they are cycling. They started out just being in adjacent stalls and then had mesh in between. This month everything was finally in place for the jaguars to be physically together. A veterinarian was on-call in case of emergency and keepers and management closely watched for aggression. Everything went wonderfully. They were separated again each evening as a precaution. The female has finished her cycle, so the jags are separated again. But keep those fingers crossed that this meeting will mean jag babies in 3 months!