Vanishing Species Wildlife

So, you've all wondered what a tiger chuff actually sounds like? I've decided to post one so ya'll can hear it. The "chuff" is the sound tigers make when they're happy and affectionate. You can even chuff at a tiger, and he will usually chuff back in response. It is a great way to bond with them.

Here it is: Diana chuffing!

The tigers at VSW make this sound ALL THE TIME when people are around. They're happy to get attention, and of course, people being around means food is on the way, so that makes them even happier.

Tigers start chuffing when they are only DAYS old; I remember hearing Taj chuff when he was still a micro-tiger. It's so adorable!

Cougars can be vocal as well. One of the most vocal cougars at VSW is Mystique. Here's a sample of the sound she tends to make to try to get attention:

Mystique "meowp"ing!

You can hear her from quite a distance, too. }:)

-Z

So today I went to Sawgrass Recreational Park at around 2:30PM. Junior the Florida Panther was there; he's always fun to play with. He was so playful today that he was difficult to handle at times! You should see him, chasing a blue ball around and pushing it out of range of his restraint so someone has to go get it for him. It's really true; dogs have masters, cats have staff. }:)

Leah was there, and decided to take some pictures of me using my camera. THANK YOU, Leah, if you are reading this, for the great pictures! They are posted on the site as usual; feel free to browse.

I managed to get a really cool shot of Junior yawning with his tongue curled up, and also took some pictures of the chinchilla, Penelope the Skunk, and the rabbit. Unfortunately, the pictures of penelope don't have quite as much depth of field as I'd liked, but the lighting was tricky and she was moving around WAY too much to use a slow shutter speed. Apparently skunks do this really cool forepaw stomp thing when they're riled up; it was rather cute so I tried to get a good picture of it.

All the pictures are posted at the VSW pictures site, feel free to browse and enjoy!

Later I visited the property, and found that Shoshauna was still there. In fact, no other animals had left the facility! I'm expecting Shoshauna, Nikki, Diana, Darlene, and Nat to leave within the next couple of days; it will be a sad day for me as the facility they are going to is a 2.5 hour drive from home and I won't get to visit them very often.

We fed the tigers ribs tonight. The nice thing about ribs is they're flat; you can shove the whole thing into the enclosure through a gap in the fence. I've found that it doesn't matter whether you can actually fit the meat through the feedholes; the tigers manage to make it fit once they grab ahold of it.

Fun fun fun!

So, this weekend I'm going to meet up with some friends at OtakuCon, an anime convention in Miami Beach. Looks like it's going to be fun.

Unfortunately it's going to be cold Sunday, so if I go to VSW to volunteer at the property I'll freeze to death. But of course it's worth it to hear those tiger-chuffs!

Oh, and Shoshauna might be leaving soon. Hell, she might be gone by Sunday. Oh well, that's life...