This is how the animals at Bioparc Fuengirola combat high temperatures: ice cream and diffusers to cool the facilities

August 2th, 2024

This is how the animals at Bioparc Fuengirola combat high temperatures: ice cream and diffusers to cool the facilities

Various vegetables and fruits, chopped meat, fish or insects are combined with juices and juices to stimulate the senses of many species such as tigers, leopards, gorillas, hippos or meerkats, among others.

Orange warnings due to high temperatures are becoming more frequent and all living beings suffer the consequences of this extreme heat. The BIOPARC Fuengirola team works to guarantee the well-being of its animals and, especially these days, with special care in combating those 40 degrees of temperature recorded.

In order to ensure that all the species they house have their needs met, keepers are doing everything they can to ensure that all animals stay hydrated and cool in the face of this incredibly hot weather. Measures extraordinary measures that guarantee the well-being of animals at this time. One of them is the preparation of diets specifically designed for these months and which include refreshing drinks. ice creams of all flavors and for all tastes: various vegetables and fruits, chopped meat and blood, fish or insects. An ice cream adapted to the needs of each species.

For felines such as tigers or leopards, they enjoy huge poles of ice water mixed with blood and pieces of meat, located in strategic places in the facilities. These enrichments are not only nutritional, but they are also sensory. An enjoyment not only because of the fresh delicacy that lies inside the ice cream, but because they represent a beneficial stimulation for the animal that activates its instincts.

In the case of gorillas, chimpanzees, gibbons or lemurs, the BIOPARC Fuengirola kitchen prepares colorful ice creams or sorbets of beet juice, spinach combined with pieces of other types of vegetables and fruits such as apples, carrots, tomatoes, bananas, watermelon, etc And one of the most curious, the small frozen cubes that meerkats enjoy: worm and grasshopper slushes.

These ice creams are not the main food of the species that BIOPARC Fuengirola houses. They are part of the enrichment with which the Zoology team stimulates the animals: sensory, motor, behavioral, among others.

This summer protocol also includes the activation of diffusers to cool facilities like, for example, that of the hornbills. In addition, most venues also have with shaded areas, rivers or ponds that allow the animals to cool off whenever they want.

A tour of the rainforests of the world

Since last June, Bioparc Fuengirola has offered its visitors an extraordinary tour of the rainforests of the world: the island of Madagascar, equatorial Africa, Southeast Asia, the Indo-Pacific and, now, Central and South America. The latter, a thematic area that is inspired by the historic first circumnavigation of the world carried out by Juan Sebastián Elcano and the men of the ship Victoria.

To the fauna and flora already represented in the park, is now added that belonging to the tropical areas of Central and South America, thus completing a journey through all the tropical jungles of the world. From the depths of the Amazon to the dense forests of the Congo.

The role of water in Bioparc Fuengirola was and is essential. Until now, a complete water circuit composed of living estuaries and waterfalls guaranteed the well-being of each and every one of the species that the park protects and houses. But, now, life within these rivers takes on a special role.