Summer Vacation Redux #26: Denver Zoo, part 3

Leaving the Tropical Discovery building you step out to the Seal Habitats. 

 There were two of them.  A smaller one where a pair of Harbor Seals, Phoca vitulina, were frolicking.  Like at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, these also love to swim upside down in the water.

The larger area is for a group of 4 or 5 California Seal Lions, Zalophus californianus.  These kids were all over the place and quite the bunch of show-offs.  What fun!

From this area, it's a short walk to "The Edge".  This is the new Amur Tiger, Panthera tigris altaica, habitat.  It costs 2.2 million dollars to research and design and gives the tigers a separate pair of spacious habitats allowing them to be together or apart as is appropriate.  The areas provide opportunities to climb and to position themselves high up above visitors.  I could see where they'd incorporated ideas from the award winning habitat up-dates at the Philadelphia Zoo.  The tigers were very comfortable in their habitat--such magnificent creatures.