Through Tue 8/7
There’s never a bad time to go to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo to observe all the wonderful animals in the array of new habitats the zoo has been building in the last decade and learn more about efforts to protect them in the wild. But there’s something extra special there now: three snow leopard cubs who were born on April 22.
Yes, we know they’re so cute you’ll want to take them home, but they’re really happier in their new space, the state-of-the-art Asian Highlands, which opened in June. There’s even a “cub yard,” with special climbing platforms just for the little ones. They’ll be living there with their mother Sombra until they are old enough to be independent, when they are about a year-and-a-half old.
The zoo is currently having a contest to pick the final names for the cubs, two males and a female, from five the zoo has proposed. They are Bodhi (“enlightenment”), Goji (as in the berry), Nisha (“light”), Omid (“Hope”) and Zara (flower”). You can vote at the zoo or online with a donation to the zoo through the Future for Wildlife Fund at futureforwildlife.org/cubnaming. Funds raised will support the Zoo’s conservation efforts to protect snow leopards in Central Asia, where there are fewer than 7,000 remaining, in partnership with the Snow Leopard Trust in Mongolia.
Voting ends at midnight Tue 8/7 but the Sombra and the cubs will be waiting for you to come and shower them with admiration anytime.
3900 Wildlife Way, Cleveland, OH 44109-3132