Puma cub doing well after his rescue from Zogg fire
Amid grim news from the Northern California f ire zone, one furry sight brought yips of excitement this week when emergency responders rescued a lone mountain lion cub from the burn zone of the Zogg fire in Shasta County.
Despite singed whiskers and burned paws, the blueeyed cub dubbed Capt. Cal is full of personality and can be seen baring his teeth fiercely in photos.
“He’s doing really well,” said Erin Harrison, vice president of marketing for the Oakland Zoo, where Capt. Cal is being kept. “He’s continuing to eat. He’s getting a little feistier. He’s looking really good.”
When f irefighters in Shasta County f irst spotted the baby, they mistook him for a house cat, said Issac Sanchez, a Cal Fire captain and spokesman. He was wandering alone on Zogg Mine Road before taking refuge under a fallen tree. When the f ire crew took a closer look, they realized the animal was a puma kitten.
Officials loaded the baby into a cardboard box and turned him over to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which took him to the Oakland Zoo.
Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Kirsten Macintyre said that with its facilities and trained staff, the zoo is “uniquely equipped to handle exactly this kind of case.”
At just 4 to 6 weeks old and weighing just under 4 pounds, Capt. Cal is too young and small to return to the wild, Macintyre said. Mountain lions typically stay close to their mothers for two years to learn how to hunt and survive.
Ideal circumstances would allow wild animals to be returned — or kept — in their natural environment, but that isn’t always possible. On Thursday, wildlife biologists announced that an experiment to get a cougar in the Santa Ana Mountains to adopt two orphaned cubs had failed. The effort, which was intended to keep the babies wild, did not work, and the youngsters were placed in a sanctuary.
The zoo is working with UC Davis to give Capt. Cal advanced wound treatment and will keep him until he heals, Harrison said. Chest X- rays showed no lung damage from smoke inhalation.
Once healthy, he’ll go to a new home, such as a sanctuary or another zoo. Two outof- state organizations have already asked for him, Macintyre said. “Certainly the best situation would be to be able to return him to the wild,” she said. “But a few can’t, [ and] in some cases, the animal can be an ambassador for its species.”