One of the things the Calgary Zoo was good at was surprises. Every time our class went to the zoo, we were surprised. This time was much more exciting! Near the end of the day, we were taken through this pathway and passed beside the tiger enclosure. We then went though a gate and our teacher told us we were going to do a behind the scenes tiger training! I was so excited!
We met a man named Dave. He was kind and very friendly. As we stood behind the fence, we all held our breath as Dave approached the tiger. The tiger’s name was Yuri. He was a powerful male tiger. Anyway, Dave got a bin full of meat. He began feeding the tiger through the fence.
This wasn’t called tiger training for nothing. Dave took out a whistle and made a motion with his hand. Immediately, the tiger opened it’s mouth.
Dave said, “I do that so that I can observe the tigers teeth to see if they’re all healthy”.
“Tweet!” Dave blew his whistle again. He put his gloved hand on the wired fence. Immediately, the tiger leaped up, touching his paw with Dave’s hand! What an incredible sight! I later learned that the tiger leaps up so that Dave can see if Yuri was healthy. After each trick, I noticed that Dave fed Yuri meat. That’s called training with rewards.
RIPPING THE BOX!
Dave put a huge heavy box of horse meat in the tiger’s enclosure. As soon as he put it in Yuri leaped up, picking the box with him and ripped it to shreds! He took his huge claws and literally destroyed the box within 2 seconds! Then Yuri leaped up taking the horse meat with him, and ran of to the other side of the enclosure, in just two seconds! He was pretty fast!
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If you want to see the tiger training, visit the Calgary Zoo located at- 210 St. George’s Drive NE, Calgary, AB T2E 7V6
Click the button down below to see when the tiger training is:
Conserving Animals 