Milwaukee sent snow leopards around nation
Editor’s note: One of the Milwaukee County Zoo’s important roles is in helping endangered species survive and continue. According to the zoo’s website, 63 of its animals are included in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plans. Part of that work is coordinating breeding plans with zoos around the country and the world to keep threatened species going. Sometimes, that means the Milwaukee zoo gets to share its wealth, as longtime Milwaukee Journal “Zooperstars!” columnist Alicia Armstrong reported in this Dec. 6, 1979, column about the zoo’s snow leopard program. This column has been edited for space reasons.
Where have all the leopards gone?
To New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit and Columbia, S.C.
They are, or were, Milwaukee snow leopards, and they have scattered like snowflakes from coast to coast. For they must travel to help perpetuate their species.
Snow leopards, you see, are in danger of extinction in the wild, and there aren’t a whole lot of them in captivity either — probably fewer than 200.
So zoos throughout the country are cooperating in breeding the beautiful gray and white cats.
The leopards are flown here and there in order to get unrelated males and females together for breeding. The zoological dating service has many satisfied clients, but, if you don’t have the zoo records right in front of you, it’s very hard if not impossible to remember which leopard is where.
The Milwaukee County Zoo now owns 10 snow leopards — which is a lot compared with the snow leopard holdings of other zoos — but only four of the cats actually live at the zoo here. The six others are at other zoos on breeding loans, and still other snow leopards have been traded to other zoos.
The founding mother of the Milwaukee zoo’s snow leopard colony was a gorgeous creature who was named Smiley because of her ferocious nature — you know, like calling a big, fat man Tiny. Almost all leopards are tough, but Smiley was truly outstanding in that department: She murdered one of her mates, and she committed the dreadful crime on Christmas Day just to show that she really meant business.
Smiley had arrived in Milwaukee June 16, 1964, and she moved in with a handsome fellow named Brewtus. It had seemed to be an ideal pairing, but only six months later, Smiley tore Brewtus’ throat out in a sudden, inexplica- ble Yuletide rage.
The self-made widow then was sent to the Bronx Zoo in New York City, where, it was hoped, she would make love, not war. She did exactly that and came back to Milwaukee calm and pregnant. She had two cubs: Timi, a female so named because, unlike her pugnacious mother, she was rather timid (for a leopard); and a male named Bold, who took after his mother.
Bold was traded to the San Francisco Zoo for another male, Frisco, who became Timi’s Milwaukee husband. Smiley died here Oct. 10, 1969; her daughter, Timi, and Frisco have had four litters, with a total of nine cubs. Of them, seven were traded to other zoos, one died in Milwaukee of an infection and another was kept for breeding.
If these transactions continue, the United States will have more snow leopards than Republican presidential candidates.
Postscript: The Snow Leopard Trust estimates that about 600 are now in accredited zoos around the world. And the Milwaukee zoo continues to have an active, everchanging snow leopard roster. The zoo’s sole snow leopard, Tomiris, had a cub named Sossy at the zoo in June 2014, but the cub died a little more than a year later. In December 2015, the zoo acquired a cub named Asa, the first of two new snow leopards arriving through a gift from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.