ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 21, 1996 TAG: 9608210020
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
Hey, Ruby.
Company's coming.
That is, if the Mill Mountain Zoo succeeds in a campaign to raise a minimum of $500,000 to build what would be one of the largest Siberian tiger breeding facilities in the country.
Tuesday, the zoo launched "Ruby's Tiger Rescue," an effort to prevent the endangered Siberian tiger from becoming extinct by increasing its numbers through breeding. Fewer than 200 Siberian tigers are living in the wild.
Funds raised will be used to expand the zoo's existing tiger habitat to include research facilities, a learning center for students and visitors - and larger natural habitat space to accommodate more tigers.
"What we're looking to do is bring in up to four breeding pairs of tigers," said Beth Poff, zoo director. "That way, we can contribute to the captive environment of the tigers ... make sure we always have Siberian tigers for people to see, enjoy, maybe someday put back in the wild."
The fund-raising campaign has received sponsorship from a corporation with a historical affection for the tiger.
Fourteen Exxon stations in Southwest Virginia contributed $15,000 to the campaign. The Exxon Corp. - which last year pledged $5 million over five years to tiger conservation projects worldwide - chipped in $10,000. Crestar Bank gave $5,000.
Exxon stations also are donating some of the proceeds from each purchase of "supreme" gas every Tuesday in August, September and October. Crestar, in its larger markets around Roanoke for the next 90 days, will make a contribution to the campaign for every checking or savings account opened in new branches on Tuesdays.
Poff said she hopes the campaign is successful enough to have the tiger facility completed by fall of 1997. Land-clearing and construction would take about eight months, she said.
The breeding project would be the second phase of the Mill Mountain Zoo's tiger program. The program first focused on building a proper home for Ruby, the zoo's mutt tiger - mostly Siberian but perhaps mixed with Bengal.
The zoo has been Ruby's home since 1988, when the Virginia Game Commission seized her from a Danville man. In 1991, Ruby moved from a cramped corncrib to a new $65,000 habitat, paid for by individual and corporate donations.
The zoo has applied to become part of a worldwide conservation effort - called "Species Survival Plan" - to prevent the five remaining subspecies of tigers, all endangered, from becoming extinct. The five remaining subspecies are Siberian, Sumatran, Indochinese, Bengal and South China.
Ninety-three zoos in the United States and Canada participate in the conservation effort. Fifty-six of them have Siberian tigers. Of those, about 35 have bred them, said Kathy Traylor-Holzer, conservation biologist with the Minnesota Zoo, where the species survival plan for the Siberian tiger is based.
Zoos participate in the conservation effort not only by breeding tigers but also by conducting research and housing tigers that may be past their breeding prime but need a place to live. Virginia Tech's College of Veterinary Science and Medicine will help the Mill Mountain Zoo on the research end, Poff said.
"We're committed to this until it's accomplished," Poff said. "We owe it to the Siberian tiger to get the facility going.
"This is going to be the largest Siberian tiger facility in the country. It's going to be the main focus, the main support for that species."
Whether Mill Mountain Zoo's proposed breeding facility would be the largest in the country for Siberian tigers is difficult to determine, Traylor-Holzer said. It would depend on criteria used to measure "largest," she said.
"How many tigers does it hold? How many breeding pairs could they take care of, and mothers and cubs?" she asked. "Not knowing that, I can't refute or support that statement."
The Minnesota Zoo has 11 Siberian tigers, Traylor-Holzer said.
Ruby, because of her unclear genetic history, will serve only as mascot of the tiger rescue effort.
"We don't have a clear definition of who she is," Poff said. "She doesn't have a good genetic history and we have to keep the gene lines very clean. She won't be a mom, she'll be a great-aunt.
"But she'll have her name attached to the program forever and ever. That is a contribution she can give back to her entire subspecies. And we think we want to do that for Ruby."
Donations can be mailed to Ruby's Tiger Rescue Fund, Mill Mountain Zoo, P.O. Box 13484, Roanoke, Va. 24034. The zoo's phone number is (540) 343-3241.
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