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Sasha, a 350-pound male Amur tiger, is meeting Louisville Zoo visitors with open paws.

Eight-year-old Sasha—who arrived at the Louisville Zoo two months ago from the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, New York—is currently trading time in the spotlight with 16-year-old female Amur tiger Sinda during the Zoo’s three training and educational presentations at the newly renovated Alice S. Etscorn Tiger Tundra exhibit.

“He is very smart,” Zookeeper David Hodge said of Sasha. “So far we have taught him about four training behaviors and we are working on teaching him more. Training plays an important role in the lives of our animals at the Zoo—it provides amazing enrichment by keeping animals active and engaged, and it also helps us to take better care of them.”

Training is a vital tool in animal care and allows keepers and veterinarians to do their jobs more safely and easily as well as help form a complete picture of the animal’s health.

Sasha has integrated well into his new home, and when he isn’t meeting the public during training demonstrations, he can often be seen playing with his favorite toy, a large green barrel.

The Alice S. Etscorn Tiger Tundra exhibit, which opened on June 2, represents innovative new trends in zoo exhibit design and is a way of turning the Zoo experience “inside out” by allowing special access to visitors who can view these amazing Amur tigers up-close through a 1.5 inch reinforced glass barrier or a steel mesh barrier and watch them being trained without a special behind-the-scenes tour.   

 “This exhibit allows you to get an inside peek at what we do here at the Zoo each and every day,” Hodge said.

Up-close Amur tiger training demonstration are held at the Alice S. Etscorn Tiger Tundra exhibit daily at 10:45 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. For more information on the exhibit, visit http://www.louisvillezoo.org/collection/exhibits/tigertundra/index.htm.

AMUR TIGERS
Amur tigers are the largest of the tiger subspecies and were formerly known as Siberian tigers. Males can grow up to 10 foot 9 inches long and weigh up to 660 pounds. Females are smaller, measuring about 8 1/2 feet from head to tail, and weighing about 200 to 370 pounds. The Amur orange coloring is paler than the coloring of other tigers. Its stripes are brown rather than black, and are widely spaced. It has a white chest and belly, and a thick white ruff of fur around its neck.

It is estimated there are about 500 Amur tigers left in the wild, and about 150 in managed Association of Zoos and Aquariums institutions in North America and 315 overseas.

The Louisville Zoo, a non-profit organization and state zoo of Kentucky, is dedicated to bettering the bond between people and our planet by providing excellent care for animals, a great experience for visitors, and leadership in scientific research and conservation education. The Zoo is accredited by the American Association of Museums (AAM) and by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).