Back to Tigers with 'Tude

"Nike's Bath Time"

Amur (Siberian) Tiger

Riverside Zoo

Scottsbluff, NE

This is Nike. She is one of the Amur Tigers at the Riverside Zoo in Scottsbluff, NE. The Riverside Zoo is promoted as "The Best Little Zoo in the West" and certainly it has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, when we visited in September, it was 2 weeks before the transition of ownership from the city to a non-profit organization. Because of the transition, many of the animal displays were empty.

In talking with one of the keepers, she was excited about the upcoming changes. The change in ownership had lots of positive aspects accompanying it including a New Discovery Center for hands-on learning for children as well as an organization that was dedicated to having the zoo thrive and not just survive. (I'm not going to go into the politcs of the situation here).

Normally, I'd also send you to their website to check them out, but in this case, there are 2 different websites... one that is outdated as indicated by the fact that the white tiger that used to reside at the zoo died of old age but is still listed as an animal that is on exhibit and the other one has incomplete links.

All that being said, we look forward to going back this spring to see what changes have taken place.

Today's information is provided by AMUR.

Did You Know.... ?

• The Amur tiger is the largest and heaviest subspecies of tiger.
• To survive winter the tiger has fine but long fur and layer of fat that allows it to stand the bitter cold.
• The coat is lighter in colour than other tigers and it has large paws which act rather like snow shoes.

• The weight of an adult male: up to 800 lbs
• The weight of an adult female: up to 500 lbs
• The length of an adult male: up to 10 feet