The many different Pools at Turpentine Creek
June 14, 2016
Pools come in all shapes and sizes! Big pools, little pools, plastic pools, metal pools, and even a custom built pool with a waterfall. Pools help our animals stay cool in the summer. Some of our animals love pools, others can’t stand water. We put pools in certain habitats, starting in late May to early June, depending on the weather and temperature. Pools will stay in habitats, all summer long, until the weather starts turning at the beginning of October.
Tigers and Bears love the water but Cougars, Leopards, Lions, Servals, and Bobcats are not big fans of water. Because of this, we only give pools to our Tigers and Bears. We do our best to make sure that our water-avoiding animals get plenty of shade, cool water to drink, and cool treats, to help keep them comfortable during the hot Arkansas Summer.
You might wonder why we have so many different types of pools; this is because all our animals have different needs.
Bam Bam has a specially built pool that was donated during construction of his habitat. This big boy would never have comfortably fit in our regular pools, so a very generous donor helped pay for a custom made pool just for him. His pool requires a lot of maintenance since it has a waterfall. We would love to have big pools like this in all our habitats, but Turpentine Creek doesn’t have enough flat land in all of the habitats for pools of this size.
Our younger tigers and bears get big pools. Their pools are either made of metal or plastic. We cannot give plastic pools to most of our animals, they tend to destroy them very quickly. Many of our animals have sharp claws and teeth and just love chewing or clawing soft plastic. So, the majority of our animals get big metal pools instead of plastic. These pools are filled with cold water, toys, and treats. We make sure to change the water as often as we can to keep the pools clean and cool. Our tigers love to lay in them, swim around, and ‘kill’ watermelons in them. It is a lot of fun to watch.
Some tigers/bears, our senior tigers/bears, get shallower pools. Just like humans, older animals can get arthritis and other ailments that make climbing in and out of a deep pool difficult. To make sure these animals will still get the chance to enjoy a pool, we have purchased special ‘short’ pools that our senior cats/bears can easily get in and out of. We want to make sure our animals are comfortable and safe.
We are very glad that we can provide our animals with some cool summer fun. Thank you to everyone who has helped us give our animals pools. They are already enjoying them!