It's been about eight months since Carolina (female), a cheetah, arrived at Cheetah zoo from Chiba City Zoological Park in late April of this year.

When she first arrived at the zoo, Carolina seemed to enjoy herself, sliding and running around on the hill in the large enclosure, sometimes staying out for over an hour. However, recently she has been staying in the birthing room enclosure, which is not open to the public, and has been staying out of the large enclosure for much longer. She went from not coming out to not coming out at all, so what could have happened to Carolina? Let's find out more about Carolina's "coming and going" habits.


Carolina wanders around the back of the large enclosure, observing her surroundings.
The exhibit area has a large enclosure and a glass enclosure. Carolina can "go out" to the large enclosure, which is a private area, by passing through the birthing room enclosure from inside the building.


Layout of the exhibit area. The green line shows Carolina's route from her indoor enclosure to the large enclosure.
When Carolina was first put on display at Tama Zoo, she was let out into the large enclosure between 9 and 11 am. However, as mentioned earlier, recently she had been returning quickly to the birthing room enclosure but not going inside. In mid-October, when her display time was changed to 2 pm to 4 pm, she went out for a few days without any problems, but gradually she stopped going from the birthing room enclosure to the large enclosure. At the same time, the instances of her taking a long time to return also stopped completely, and she began returning quickly.


Carolina cautiously moves from the back of the enclosure to the front.
The biggest difference from before is that the time the animals are released into the enclosure has changed from before opening hours when the viewing area was empty to during opening hours when there are always people around. Also, because the animals are now the last to be released into the large enclosure, the scent of the animals that went out before them lingers. Additionally, the animals displayed in the adjacent glass enclosure have changed. We don't know what the animals are wary of, but we suspect that one of these factors is the cause.

She occasionally peeks into the main enclosure from the birthing room enclosure before turning back, and even when she does come out, she seems to panic and try to go back in as soon as animal keeper try to close the door. Currently, she is allowed to come and go freely between the birthing room enclosure and the main enclosure, and she is out and about without us noticing. Also, while she previously explored a wide area including the hill, she now constantly wanders around in the back, hard-to-see areas far from the viewing area.


Carolina comes to the front of the large enclosure and tries to turn back.
Carolina has gradually started to come closer to the front of the enclosure, but for the time being, the current exhibit schedule will continue, so there may be days when you cannot see her. However, we will continue to observe her closely and try to understand her feelings so that she will once again be running around the large enclosure energetically.

[Tama Zoo]

(December 28, 2023)