Mek Degong - Malayan Tiger - San Diego Zoo - May 26, 2019

The story of Malayan Tiger Mek Degong is a bit fuzzy.  It looks like she came to the US sometime in 2003, after being captured by Malayan authorities.  Over the years I've heard several variations of the story as to why she was captured, it seems she was either scaring villagers by getting too close, or eating the villagers' livestock, or eating the villagers.  Who knows?  At least she wasn't killed, either by authorities or poachers, and she ended up in San Diego.  I have photos of her going way back on this blog, including her litter of three cubs in 2009, then Christopher and Connor in 2011.  You could say that she is the "mother of all tigers" because she is in fact the mother of all of the other tigers at the San Diego Zoo right now.
   
Mek moved from San Diego up to Fresno in late 2013, where she had four more cubs in January of 2014, bringing the total up to 11.  Two of those cubs, the males Cinta and Berani, have been here in San Diego since November of 2014.  There are lots of pictures of the two of them on this blog.
   
Fresno Zoo is apparently going to renovate its tiger habitat and so . . . Mek is back in San Diego.  Here are a few pictures from one of Mek's first days out in the large enclosure.

They are not even sure exactly how old Mek is, so they are using the assumption that she is 20 this year, which makes her a fairly old cat.  Still, she is quite quick and alert, and from what I saw yesterday, still fairly aggressive and loud.

Click here to see more pictures of Mek Degong, one of the Malayan Tigers at the San Diego Zoo.    
     

All images in this post were taken with a Fujifilm X-T2 and XF55-200mm lens.