Jackson Zoo starts $1.1M exhibit

By Sherry Lucas • clarionledger.com

The Jackson Zoo breaks ground on a $1.1 million Asian tiger exhibit Thursday morning that will increase its tiger space tenfold.

The exhibit is expected to open next March. It’ll include 9,000 square feet of outside exhibit area with trees, a waterfall and pool plus 17-foot-tall containment fencing and 1,800 square feet of indoor holding area.

“It has the capacity to hold up to five adult cats,” said zoo spokesman Chris Mims.

The new exhibit area is for the three brother Sumatran tigers now in the zoo’s collection. “It’ll provide them with 10 times more space than they currently have,” Mims said.

Vickie D. King/The Clarion-Ledger File photo of an Indochinese tiger watching onlookers.

One of the male tigers will go to the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans at some point and the Jackson Zoo hopes to get a female tiger to start a breeding program. “But we can’t even think about that until we have more space than we do now.”

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