EAZA Tiger Campaign 2002/4
Campaign efforts in Antwerp Zoo
The Antwerp Zoo ‘Tiger tent'
The EAZA Tiger Campaign at Antwerp Zoo was launched in July. During July and August, zoo visitors could visit our special ‘Tiger tent', strategically positioned next to the Amur tiger enclosure. Thanks to the financial support of ExxonMobil Benelux it was possible to ‘man' the Tiger tent with our zoo guides every day. This sponsorship proved crucial to the financial success of the campaign, as it quickly became clear that it was mainly the enthusiastic ‘cabaret' of our zoo guides that made people dig into their pockets.
The tent contained not only education panels, but more importantly a Tiger touch table. Here our visitors could stroke a tiger without losing their lives (we had a tiger skin), they could touch its teeth without losing their fingers (we had a skull), they could tickle its toes without getting scratched by its claws (we had a paw print), they could hear ánd feel a Tiger roar (we had a recording), they could ask all they wanted about our three tigers ‘Kharlan', ‘Nouchka' and ‘Yessie' and the role they play in the breeding programme (we had a studbook) and they received information on the various threats that tigers face.
In order to encourage people to leave more than foot prints around the tent we created a life sized tiger silhouette, with on its tummy 440 puzzle pieces - about the number of Amur tigers remaining in the wild. For one euro, a child could colour one puzzle piece. We decided to collect funds for project 6 (mediating conflicts between tigers and people) and the life-sized tiger silhouette generated sympathy from our visitors for the people having to share their back yards with this majestic but also massive cat. On 21 August we had generated € 3,675; not bad for such a short period of time!
We also participated in the ‘Tiger and Leopard Day' on 27 September and have a few other things up our sleeves for the remainder of the campaign, but perhaps we can tell you about that in the near future!
