1st November 2013
By The Cork.ie
news@TheCork.ie
Fota Wildlife Park are delighted to announce that our 1st Northern Cheetah Cub born at the park is to be named ROG in honour of the former Irish and Munster Rugby star Ronan O’Gara.
The name choice was tough for the Cork attraction as over 8,000 comments and suggestions poured into them in one week via social media as the public went wild for the new cub. Speaking about the choice head of marketing at the park Stephen Ryan said “the response was phenomenal the biggest we have ever had for naming an animal and in the end we decided to honour someone locally in Ronan who has also been a member of the park with his wife Jessica for the last couple of years”.
ROG who is 6 weeks old today is thriving having been hand reared by the park staff after his mother’s milk dried up because there was not enough milk with only one cub suckling. He is 179th Cheetah to have been born in Fota Wildlife Park but the first of the northern cheetah as part of a new breeding programme that was introduced in 2011.
The cub that was unveiled to the public last week has caused quite a stir online with a thousand likes in one hour on Facebook and over 8,000 comments via the parks social media channels in 1 week. He can now be seen at the park’s Incubation house throughout the winter.
The announcement of ROG comes one week after the Corkman’s testimonial dinner which raised funds for three great charities including CUH Charity, CMRF Crumin and the Donal Walsh foundation. The name which was a popular choice over the week was first suggested by Alan Cogan on Twitter who said “it just has to be ROG, a born survivor”. Alan will now get the chance to see ROG up close as he wins a Behind the Scenes Experience for the winning name.
