Video: turkey leg instead of tinsel | STERN.de

STORY: It smells like Christmas at Tierpark Berlin. A few days after the festival, the Sumatran tigers give presents. Two Christmas trees decorate the enclosure, but instead of baubles and tinsel, fruit, vegetables and meaty delights hang on the coniferous wood. For the animals, however, the Christmas present is not just a gag for the festival. The unknown and strange-smelling object in the familiar enclosure should offer the animals new stimuli. Matthias Papies, senior curator at Tierpark Berlin: “Well, we’ve been doing the Christmas trees, for example, and other things in general for many, many years, because we now know that it’s also really important for the animals, so to speak, too to be challenged. And of course we make Christmas trees like every year, so in December, maybe at the beginning of January. And that’s really great for the animals, because there’s always something that doesn’t happen every week, but that Then it happens once a year for a certain period of time and then it’s other things again.” The two young animals in particular are curious to explore the strange green needle thing. Luise and Lotte were born in September. A breeding success that the Tierpark and the associated Zoo Berlin are particularly happy about, because the Sumatran tigers living in Indonesia are threatened with extinction. According to estimates, there are fewer than 400 specimens in the wild – mostly solitary. The family idyll in Berlin is all the more beautiful. “We’re lucky here that with father Jae Jae, that is, our tomcat and the cat Mayang, we really have two very tolerant animals that get along really well and so that we can have the offspring and the mother together with the dad so they can really keep each other busy and really have a great life.” While the tigers make small wood out of their Christmas presents this Thursday, the elks in the zoo are not so interested in fun and games. For them, the Christmas trees are simply fodder. But with such a treat, the day is somehow a celebration.

More

source site-1