Friday, July 10, 2009

'Club Med for tigers'

'Club Med for tigers'
Discovery Kingdom opens Odin's Temple exhibit
By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen/Times-Herald staff writer
Posted: 07/10/2009



Odin, a male white Bengal tiger, swims Thursday in a pool in his new home, Odin's Temple of the Tiger at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)

It wasn't a typical ribbon-cutting.

It involved no giant scissors -- just giant claws and teeth -- when Six Flags Discovery Kingdom's Odin's Temple of the Tiger exhibit officially opened Thursday.

It took some coaxing to get 10-month-old cubs Akasha and Nalin to cut through the banner stretched across the steps below the new tiger exhibit's entrance, which they preferred to duck under. They needed no such encouragement to frolic and lounge among the rocks and waterfalls of their new enclosure.

The authentic-looking faux boulders are heated in winter and cooled in summer, park spokespeople said.

"It's like Club Med for tigers," park spokesman "Captain" Lee Munro said.

The new exhibit also provides a fenced-in, glass-fronted viewing area where guests can watch the cats enjoy those features.

Having taken a few weeks longer than expected to acclimate to their new surroundings, the big cats' new facility's grand opening was postponed until Thursday. Members of the press were treated to a demonstration of some of the tigers' behaviors around which a new and improved tiger show has been developed, Munro said.

"The old show was more of a demonstration," he said. "Now we've added music and characters, and it's more of an actual production."

The new interactive show is 20 minutes long.

The cubs and the exhibit's star performer, the white male Bengal tiger Odin, were allowed Thursday to take a swim in the new glass-enclosed pool just off the main stage. There, Odin dove several times for raw horse meat treats, permitting photographers to snap dozens of spectacular close-up shots. It's the behavior that made Odin world famous, park spokeswoman Nancy Chan said.

The new stage area, designed to resemble an old, ruined temple, features a shaded, 2,500-seat stadium from which guests can view the performance.

Some of the park's 11 Bengal and Amur (also known as Siberian) tigers remain in the old Odin's Tiger Island, and as they are gradually acclimated to the new exhibit, guests can still observe them there, Chan said.

Trainers have been working with the big cats since they were very young cubs, Munro said. But even so, they never forget that though "these tigers are very well trained, they are by no means tame," he said. "It's a mutual respect thing."

The new and improved tiger show has been playing to appreciative audiences twice daily for about a week, Chan said.



Odin, a male white Bengal tiger, is the star of new show exhibit, Odin's Temple of the Tiger, which opened Thursday at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)

Contact staff writer Rachel Raskin-Zrihen at 553-6824 or RachelZ@thnewsnet.com