Pictures Of Snow Leopards

Love Story

It's been only a couple of weeks, but it's been love at first sight.

Rusa, the 31-year-old female orangutan at Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure, has become smitten with a new arrival at the Great Ape building: a 34-year-old male orangutan named Clyde, who arrived last month from the San Diego Zoo.

Clyde is a replacement for Robbie, an 18-year-old orangutan who was transferred June 1 to the St. Louis Zoo.

Ever since Clyde met Rusa, they have been inseparable companions, said Lynne Kearney, an ape keeper at Rolling Hills.

"Robbie tended to be more of an attention seeker and show-off, while Clyde's only focus has been on (Rusa)," she said.

Clyde arrived at Rolling Hills on May 9. After a month in quarantine, he was introduced to the public Tuesday at the Great Ape building.

Robbie had been Rusa's companion since his arrival from the Topeka Zoo in 1999 at the age of 6. It wasn't long before he became one of the zoo's most popular attractions and the Great Ape building's official greeter, posing for pictures and showing off for visitors who wanted to see him in action.

Rusa, however, treated him like a harried mother dealing with a particularly hyperactive toddler.

"She pretty much raised Robbie and looked at him as a kid," said Christine Ashcraft, lead ape keeper at Rolling Hills.

Time for him to move on

Once Robbie turned 18 and became a full-grown orangutan, it was time for him to sire offspring.

Since Rusa was much older and expressed no interest in being near Robbie, much less being intimate with him, it was decided to transfer Robbie to the St. Louis Zoo.

Clyde was sent from the San Diego Zoo for the simple reason that officials couldn't have two alpha males ruling the roost.

"Clyde was the alpha male of his group in San Diego, and he had a 17-year-old son, Satu, that they wanted to take over as the alpha male and lead the group," said Rolling Hills ape keeper Deb Zerbe, who flew to San Diego in May to bring Clyde back to Kansas.

Zerbe traveled with Clyde in the cargo hold of a Federal Express plane. Clyde was quarantined for 30 days.

"It's for the safety of the animals," Zerbe said. "We have to make sure he's germ and disease free before bringing him into the general population."

When Clyde was introduced to Rusa, the ape keepers were pleasantly surprised to see how quickly the orangutans bonded.

Snow Leopard Blog » Blog Archive » Rare Photos Released from China ...

The Snow Leopard Trust China Team has just released a series of photographs taken by motion sensing cameras placed throughout snow leopard habitat in their country. The result? Incredible images depicting multiple snow leopards hunting and feeding- behavior that has only been captured a few times before. All photos are below, however a short video was made of two one-second images that can be view by clicking here.

The series of photos below depict a mother snow leopard and her two cubs feeding on an blue sheep over the span of one snowy day.

Wow those are so cool! Nature is amazing; animals keep surprising us with there funny ways. They always surprise us! You guys do amazing work to save these beautiful creatures and I love seeing all the efforts and successes you guys put out =) Keep up the amazing work!