Baby Cheetah and Puppy Pal Celebrate First Anniversary Together
This week, Busch Gardens Tampa is celebrating a milestone anniversary for a very special relationship. Monday, April 16 marked the one-year anniversary of the first time park guests got to see an 8-week-old male cheetah cub and a 16-week-old female yellow Labrador puppy start to strike up a friendship that the park’s animal experts expect to last a lifetime.
The pair – later named Kasi and Mtani by park fans via a Facebook poll – spent only supervised play times together at first. Now, a year later, they live together full time at the park’s Cheetah Run habitat and even travel together to schools, events and television studios, helping the park’s education team teach the public about the plight of cheetahs in the wild and the importance of Busch Gardens’ conservation efforts.
Park guest can see Kasi and Mtani daily at Cheetah Run, where they spend a portion of each day playing together on the habitat, training with their keepers and exercising with the habitat’s lure system, designed to encourage the animals to do what cheetahs (and Mtani, too!) do best: run and chase.
Although this is Busch Gardens’ first cub-and-puppy combo, it is not uncommon in the zoological community for a single cheetah to be raised with a canine companion. “Male cheetahs are social and often live together in coalitions,” said Tim Smith, a zoo manager who works with the cheetah team daily. “This social bond will be a very similar relationship, and they will be together for life.”… Continue reading
Tropicana Field welcomes a high speed visitor!
On Friday, March 9, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment (SEA)will broadcast the most recent installment of its Saving a Species series, which features some of Busch Gardens Tampa’s most popular new residents – the cheetahs – and St. Petersburg’s Tropicana Field.
With the stadium closed to outside visitors and the turf marked for the St. Petersburg Bowl football game, the cheetahs were encouraged to run the length of the field, chasing a lure system identical to the one in their Cheetah Run habitat. The cats’ efforts were captured by high-definition and slow-motion cameras.
“ Even though we have this awesome habitat at Busch Gardens, a 100-yard football field will give us the opportunity to showcase what that speed looks like on a field that people can relate to ,” said Tim Smith, a Busch Gardens assistant curator who works with the cheetahs daily.
Saving A Species: Cheetah
From its breathtaking speed to its beauty and vulnerability, the cheetah’s story will bring you face to face with their fragile existence. We’ll introduce you to people around the globe who are working on behalf of this imperiled predator and explain how you can help keep cheetahs from disappearing forever.
The 25-minute program is available to teachers and broadcasters free of charge. It will be broadcast without commercials from 10:45 to 11:30 a.m. (first 15-minutes are color bars) on Friday, March 9. Satellite coordinates, copyright information and web-quality preview segments are available at ShamuTV.com. In the coming months, the site will also… Continue reading
HELP BUSCH GARDENS KASI WIN NATIONAL “CUTEST ZOO BABY” CONTEST
Kasi, along with his best friend Mtani, a Labrador puppy, has been making news since he have arrived at Busch Gardens earlier this year. Now, with your help, Kasi has a chance to win the title of cutest zoo baby.
Busch Gardens baby cheetah, Kasi, is one of the three finalists for the BudgetTravel.com’s cutest zoo baby contest. Kasi was in the lead when the national poll launched, but has now slipped into 2nd place, behind an owl fowl from the Cincinnati Zoo. Help Kasi regain the lead by voting for her in the online poll!
Click here to vote for Kasi by July 6, 2011
Busch Gardens Cheetah Hunt Show – Friday 28th May Radio show Archive
What started off like any other show turned into a whole hour show on Cheetah hunt and rightly so as it is an awesome ride..
Included amongst our usual ramblings are interviews with
- Zoological Operations Mike Boos from the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in South Africa talks about SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund’s support of CCF’s cheetah conservation and education programs.
- Vice President of Design & Engineering Mark Rose discusses the mechanics of a Linear Synchronous Motor Launch Coaster and how the addition of Cheetah Hunt further solidifies Busch Gardens’ position as Florida’s coaster leader.
- Park President Jim Dean talks about the parks and how he thinks everything comes together so well for Busch Gardens.
Direct Download or Check out iTunes
Check out Nicks article at http://www.eyeonorlando.com/2011/05/busch-gardens-cheetah-hunt-ride-details/
and
Nicks video of him on the ride
Testing Crews to Launch Cheetah Hunt
Cheetah Hunt’s Multiple Launch Points Will Undergo
Numerous, Repeated Tests Over The Next Several Days
This weekend, Busch Gardens’ Design & Engineering team will officially launch Florida’s first triple-launch coaster for the first time. But, the park warns, guests hoping to catch a glimpse of the testing in progress shouldn’t expect Cheetah Hunt to be up to full speed quite yet.
Baby Cheetah Gets a New Puppy Pal
Guests Invited To Help Name Young Cat and Yellow Lab, Who Will Make Their Public Debut on Saturday
Just a month after Busch Gardens took in a cheetah cub whose mother wasn’t caring for it, the park’s animal care team has identified the perfect four-legged friend for the 8-week-old cat: a 16-week old female yellow Labrador puppy.
The two were first introduced over the weekend and have been spending supervised play times together each day. Eventually, the pair will live together and even travel together, helping the park’s education team teaching the public about the plight of cheetahs in the wild and the importance of Busch Gardens’ conservation efforts.
Although this is Busch Gardens’ first cub-and-puppy combo, it is not uncommon in the zoological community for a single cheetah to be raised with a canine companion. “Male cheetahs are social and often live together in coalitions,” said Tim Smith, one of Busch Gardens’ animal curators. “This social bond will be a very similar relationship, and they will be together for life.”
Beginning Saturday, April 16, the cub and puppy will move to Jambo Junction in the Nairobi area of the park, where guests will be able to see them at select times throughout the day. Guests are also invited to help name the pair. Starting today, the public can “like” the Busch Gardens Facebook page (www.facebook.com/buschgardenstampabay) and vote for their favorite names. The polls will close at noon on Monday, April 18, and the winners will be announced that afternoon.
Cheetahs are included on both the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) list of vulnerable species as well as on the US Endangered Species Act list of threatened species. Only approximately 12,400 cheetahs remain in the wild. Busch Gardens supports the conservation of and education about cheetahs through the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, which has donated nearly $100,000 to cheetah efforts in Africa since 2005 and also helps fund conservation programs for white rhinos, marine animals and many other species around the world.
Cheetah Hunt Update Part I
We sent Nick down to Busch Gardens to get us the latest photos of cheetah hunt with only weeks to go before the opening
Testing Begins on Cheetah Hunt
After bolting in the final piece of Cheetah Hunt’s 4,429’ track just last week, Busch Gardens’ design & engineering team are losing no time in getting the mega-attraction’s trains on the track for the first round of testing.
Yesterday, crews began the slow process of using cranes and pulleys to drag the car around the track. This initial testing is the park’s way of making sure the car glides smoothly along the entire length of the ride, as well as checking that the “ride envelope” – the space around the car and rider with arms fully extended – has plenty of clearance.
This drag testing will take an estimated 3 to 4 days to complete and is the first step to having Cheetah Hunt ready to pounce on Friday, May 27.
cheetahs at Busch Gardens
Visitors who have been to Busch Gardens recently have no doubt seen the green and yellow steel of the new Cheetah Hunt rollercoaster.
Now five cheetahs have arrived behind the scenes in anticipation of the ride’s opening this spring. They’ll be on view as part of the Endangered Species Safari at the attraction.
Steelman, a 12-year-old male, Ngoma, a 10-year-old female, and littermates Jagati, Iraja and Juno – all born in October 2009 – will be part of Cheetah Run, the new habitat opening alongside the Cheetah Hunt launch coaster that will bring guests face to face with these fast and agile cats. The exhibit is designed to teach visitors about cheetahs’ plight in the wild.
During the safari encounter, visitors will learn that these five cats came from the White Oak Conservation Center in Jacksonville, but their wild counterparts are highly endangered. There are less than 10,000 cheetahs left in the world, according to a Busch Gardens press release announcing the cheetahs’ arrival, and repopulation is made difficult by low birth rates and human intrusion into their habitat.
The 45-minute Endangered Species Safari also includes up-close encounters with giraffes, zebra and rhinos on the 65-acre Serengeti Plain. The experience is $39.95 per person, plus tax, and park admission is required, but not included.
Busch Gardens’ zoo educators will also talk about the efforts of the Sea World & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, which has donated almost $100,000 to cheetah efforts in Africa since 2005 and also helps fund… Continue reading
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