$2 Million Gift Funds a Sumatran Tiger Habitat in Miami

Zoo Miami is building a new home for Sumatran tigers, and a $2 million gift from the Milton family is paying for it. The zoo and Zoo Miami Foundation announced the donation on December 18, 2025, along with the name the habitat will carry: Cecil and Ana Milton Family Foundation Stripes of Sumatra.

Construction is scheduled to break ground in April 2026. The gift is one of the top five largest in the zoo’s history.

What is being built

The zoo describes Stripes of Sumatra as expansive, naturalistic space with educational and cultural elements built into it, designed to raise standards of animal care and to deepen what guests take away from seeing a tiger. Concept renderings released with the announcement show a large pavilion under a dramatically upswept, curving roof, set at the head of a paved plaza, with a mesh-fronted tiger yard running alongside it and planting closing in on both sides.

The building is doing more than housing. Giving a habitat the architecture of the place its animals come from is how an exhibit teaches where a species actually lives, instead of leaving a visitor with a general impression of somewhere hot with trees.

Fewer than 400 left

Sumatran tigers are the reason the project reads as urgent. Fewer than 400 remain in the wild.

A habitat at an accredited zoo does not fix that by itself. What it does is hold animals in conditions good enough that a zoo can raise them well, and put close to a million visitors a year within a few feet of a species most of them will never otherwise see.

“We believe in the power of education, compassion, and connection,” said Ana VeigaMilton. “Zoo Miami has always been a place where my family and all families can learn about wildlife and the importance of protecting it and the environment. Our hope is that this habitat inspires visitors to care deeply about tigers and join us in ensuring they continue to thrive, in the wild and in our community.”

Not the family’s first project here

The Miltons have been building things at this zoo for years. Through the José Milton Foundation they funded the Animal Fun Factory, which Zoo Miami calls the first guest-interactive, multisensory enrichment center of its kind at a zoo accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Enrichment is the work of giving animals problems worth solving, and the Fun Factory is unusual in letting guests take part in it rather than watch from a rail. The family also supports the Ron Magill Conservation Endowment, which funds wildlife and habitat conservation and the people building careers in it.

“This gift represents the very best of what our community can achieve when passion and purpose come together,” said José Romano, president and CEO of Zoo Miami Foundation. “Ana and the Milton family are not only investing in a state-of-the-art habitat, they are investing in the future of a species on the brink.”

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the gift would elevate Zoo Miami as a leader in animal care and education and “help safeguard one of the planet’s most endangered species.”

A zoo in a construction decade

Stripes of Sumatra is the second major build Zoo Miami has put in motion inside a year. In February 2026 the zoo broke ground on a 25,000 square-foot animal hospital placed along a public pathway so visitors can watch veterinary work in progress. Both projects share a premise: the parts of a zoo that used to happen behind a door are worth showing people.

Zoo Miami is one of the largest zoological parks in the United States, home to more than 2,000 animals, and it is known for open-air exhibits suited to a subtropical climate. Tigers have a place in that. Soon they will have a better one.

More from Miami: the animal hospital guests can watch. And from the tiger beat: Tiger Forest opens at Palm Beach Zoo.