Welcome, Aries!

Our Zoo is now home to a trio of bobcats! Aries, a 2-year-old male, joins our 16-year-old Eko and 9-year-old Abby in the Wild Florida loop.

Aries celebrated his second birthday with us in quarantine, so our animal care team made him a special enrichment item!

Aries was born in his natural range in California and may have lost his mother at a young age. He was raised in a private facility until they could no longer keep him. The local government helped find him a home with our Zoo. After an initial quarantine period in a behind-the-scenes area, Aries is now getting to know his new Wild Florida habitat.

This loop now basically has a bobcat corner! We renovated and added onto several spaces to accommodate the trio, including the space that previously housed foxes. Thelma and Louise the grey foxes left our Zoo recently for another facility that was a better fit for their shyer personalities.

The new bobcat habitats feature platforms and ramps to give our residents the chance to climb and explore. While each of our bobcats has his or her own habitat, we’ve added sky trails (ala our Rainforest Revealed habitats!) to let Abby, Aries and Eko switch habitats and explore new spaces. We hope to begin introductions among the bobcats to see if they’d be open to sharing spaces together as well.

For now, Aries continues to acclimate well to his new space and animal care team. He’s started target training, or learning to move toward and touch a target when asked. This skill is a building block for other behaviors – and helps his keepers maneuver him to different areas.

While our trio may look similar at first glance, here’s how to tell each of them apart:

• Abby is the smallest of the trio.
• While Eko and Aries are comparable weight-wise, Eko has a more angular face.

See if you can spot all three of them in their Wild Florida habitats!

Brevard Zoo is an independent, not-for-profit organization that receives no recurring government funding for our operating costs. Your generous support enables us to continue to serve our community and continue our vital animal wellness, education and conservation programs.