Workers at Saint John’s Cherry Brook Zoo are busy preparing for a new guest – a large Siberian tiger named Sarma.
The two-year-old tiger is en route from Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park Zoo and is expected to arrive in Saint John sometime this week.
“It’s a long trip, I mean, Winnipeg. It’s got to be in there for a few days and then when it gets here we’ve got to unload it and go it safely, so there’s a lot of preparation,” says zoo keeper Shane Button.
Button has been preparing for Sarma’s arrival for several weeks. He says staff and zoogoers are eager to meet the new addition.
“That’s pretty much our mascot animal, is a tiger,” he says. “We’ve got the claws of a tiger. We’ve got the tiger sign out front and people, they love the tiger.”
The zoo was forced to euthanize their six-year-old tiger, Nyla, when she became ill this summer. Since then, her cage has sat empty.
While Sarma is coming from a zoo in Winnipeg, her family history has ties to Saint John.
“This represents third generation that will be here at Cherry Brook Zoo,” says zoo director Len Collrin. “We’ve had the mother, the son, who has since gone out to become a stud, and now we’re getting his offspring, so we’ll have three generations.”
Collrin says, years ago, it wasn’t uncommon to simply lead a young tiger into a cage. However, he says safety standards have increased, making the process a bit more complicated.
“There will be a transport cage. It will come down in an animal hauler vehicle especially equipped to do this,” says Collrin. “Once it arrives, we’ll take the crate into the building and it’s designed to fit up against the door. We have two safety doors built in. We simply open it up and let her in.”
Collrin says it will take a few days for Sarma to settle into her new home. He expects she will be on display and ready for visitors by the weekend.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Ashley Dunbar
