DENVER — The Siberian tigers Yuri and Nikita at the Denver Zoo, who are supposed to mate, suffer most during Denver’s intensifying 95-degree heat waves, and caretakers supply cooling ice “bloodsicles” from the zoo’s heavily frequented freezers.
Zookeepers also have set up an industrial fan behind a mist-maker, aimed at the bedraggled orange-and-black tigers. Sometimes the tigers plunge into pools and collapse in a loft where there’s airflow. Nikita flops on a mound of wet sand bags.
Penguins seek “snow” made by grinding up cubes from the zoo’s ice maker, the big kind found in motels. These are penguins from South Africa and Peru, better adapted to heat than their Antarctic kin.
