Photo Spots at the National Zoo

by Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence

We’ve been visiting the National Zoo in Washington DC on a fairly regular basis recently. There are a couple of great new photo opportunities you shouldn’t miss if you’re in the area.

First is the arrival of three Sumatran Tiger Cubs at the Big Cat Exhibit. The three male cubs, Besar, Jalan and Marah, were born on May 2. Their mother Soyono and father Rokan had another cub, Berani, a couple of years ago, and now have added three more cubs to their family. The three cubs (and their mother) are on exhibit every morning from 7:30 until about noon. The cubs put on the one of the best shows in town with their romping and jumping on one another. Be sure to bring your camera and take some photos. With as rare as Sumatran Tigers are, it’s not often that you have an opportunity to see three cubs at one time.

The other exciting photo opportunity is the arrival of our new Red Panda, Jaio. There haven’t been any Red Pandas at the National Zoo, since Luke and Quentin were accidentally killed about 18 months ago. Jaio’s exhibit is near the police station, not far from the Great Cat exhibit. She has all sorts of places to climb in the trees, and unlike the old Red Panda exhibit, you can actually see her when she’s in the trees.. In their old exhibit, Luke and Quentin were known for heading up the tallest tree, and all anyone could see from the ground was a round ball of fur. Jaio has access to the outdoor part of her enclosure anytime she wants, and usually is out by mid-morning. Be sure to stop by and see this endangered distant relative of the Giant Pandas.

You can see photos of the tiger cubs and Jaio below.

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A couple of photos taken of the tiger cubs.  It's tough to get them to hold still for the camera. . .  We think we have the cubs sorted out by their markings, but the IDs are tentative.  We have these as notecards and prints in our E-bay Store.  You can see other photos from the National Zoo in our Animals gallery.

Copyright © 2004, William Lawrence	Besar has Jalan by the tail.
Copyright © 2004, William Lawrence	Mother Soyono with cubs Jalan and Marah (left and right).
Copyright © 2004, William Lawrence	Besar piling on top of Jalan.

And a couple of shots of Jaio, the red panda:

Copyright © 2004, Patty Hankins	Stretched out on a branch.  This was taken with a 75-300 zoom lens on a Canon D60 at 300mm (35mm equivalent is a 480mm lens).  However, the panda will often get closer, allowing a more modest amount of zoom.
Copyright © 2004, Patty Hankins

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