Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 10, 1990 TAG: 9007100408
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ED SHAMY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Beth Poff, the zoo's executive director, said Monday that Ruby's new 20,000-square-foot habitat could cost as much as $600,000 to build. For the duration of a yearlong fund-raiser on Ruby's behalf, zoo officials had guessed the new habitat would cost $225,000 to build.
But once estimators began to tally the cost of grading; landscaping; constructing two viewing stands, a pool and indoor housing, they nearly tripled the preliminary estimate.
"Have you ever built a house?" asked Rita Loeb, president of the Blue Ridge Zoological Society of Virginia. "That's exactly what it's like."
The society raises money for the zoo, which receives only about $5,000 of its annual $195,000 budget from Roanoke city coffers, according to Poff.
Poff said $60,000 has been raised toward Ruby's new home. With the exception of a $15,000 donation from Dominion Bankshares Corp., all the money has come from individuals and small businesses. Recycling aluminum cans, selling T-shirts and posters, a prolonged fund-raiser by the Roanoke Jaycees and just straight donations have raised most of the money.
"Communitywise, it's been very encouraging," said Poff. "Corporatewise, it's been very discouraging. Everybody's having a tough time right now, but that's no reason not to ask."
In the meantime, Ruby, who keepers estimate now weighs about 350 pounds, languishes in a small circular cage that is perhaps 25 feet across. The tiger had surgery on her left shoulder at Virginia Tech in February, and the effects still linger - in part because the big cat cannot properly exercise, said Poff.
Construction on the new habitat was to have begun last month, said Poff. But then the more accurate and inflated estimate was completed. She said construction still could begin this summer, though that hope is quickly fading.
The new housing, suitable for as many as five tigers, would include plenty of open space and no cage bars. Tigers would roam freely across a grassy slope, beneath trees, atop rocks and in a small bathing pond.
Ironically, the habitat would not be primarily for Ruby. The zoo hopes to become part of the Siberian tigers' species survival program, and would be home to breeding pairs of tigers on loan from other zoos.
Ruby's bloodlines are not documented, and so she probably would not be used for breeding, said Poff. She was being raised in a horse trailer in Southside Virginia before agents of the Virginia Division of Game and Inland Fisheries confiscated her in late 1988.
The Mill Mountain Zoo agreed to temporarily house Ruby while searching for a proper home, but soon found that no zoos were willing to take a tiger without proven, clean bloodlines.
About a year ago, the zoo decided to keep the tiger and to raise money for the new habitat.
by CNB