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Adoption Announcement, 11/07:
It's a Mountain Lion!
Little Lotus Hearts proudly announces
the adoption of Roscoe!
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Hello there! My name is Roscoe and I'm a mountain lion living at an exotic cat sanctuary called the Center for Animal Research and Education (CARE). We are located about an hour outside the Dallas / Ft. Worth metro area.
Little Lotus Hearts has "adopted" me and is helping take care of me! Look for my monthly reports to Little Lotus Hearts about what I’m doing and what’s going at the Center in Texas.
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| CARE is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. It provides homes for 1 snow leopard, 2 cougars, 6 black and spotted leopards, 3 African lions, and 41 white and orange tigers. Also, 2 tame deer live inside the compound! You can see them above taking advantage of some shade.
A lot of people don’t realize exotic cats are exploited and abused in large numbers even in the USA. Very few of us are lucky enough to end up in a sanctuary like CARE. The illegal exotic animal trade is a $15 billion industry, and US laws are not always the best when it comes to exotic animals.
The truth is, we big cats belong in the wild or in professionally-run sanctuaries where people know how to take care of us and keep everyone safe. Only a handful of such reputable sanctuaries exist, and they get calls daily from individuals and agencies wanting to give them big cats. Imagine how many are turned away due to lack of resources.
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My own story is not so unusual. Before coming to CARE, I was a truck driver's pet. Bad idea! He bought me as a cub but he didn’t know how to take care of me, so fed me milk and dry cat food, which made me sick. Pumas have their own dietary needs; we aren't big domestic kittens.
Luckily, before my first birthday, a man from the Department of Fish and Wildlife noticed me in the big rig and intervened, so I came to CARE. I had health issues for a long time and am permanently deaf, but hard times are a distant memory.
Today I’m about 15-years old and I live with a girl half my age! Tawney is eight-years old and she’s also a mountain lion.
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On the left is my girlfriend Tawney. She was for sale on the Internet at one point in her life!
If you are curious about laws protecting exotic animals from things like internet sales, you may want to look at some of these websites:
Map: Private possession laws by state
Laws regarding exotic animal auctions by state
Laws on breeding exotic animals by state
Other legislative developments helping big cats
Get involved in bettering the laws protecting big cats here!
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At CARE, mountain lions live in enclosures with a roof that shields us from the hot Texas sun, but we get morning and late afternoon rays, which is nice. Here is Tawyney hanging out on one of our high perches near the roof.
We mountain lions / pumas / cougars are known by different names to different people. The Malecites of New Brunswick called us "pi-twal," meaning "the long-tailed one." English settlers along the Atlantic coast called us "panther" after the Old World panther, which they had seen in animal shows, zoos, and works of art. French explorers of southern Quebec and New Brunswick called us the "carcajou." The English name "cougar" and French "couguar" were adapted from the Brazilian native name "cuguacuarana." The name "mountain lion" is widely accepted, especially in the western United States. "Puma" is the native Peruvian name. (source: Hinterland Who's Who)
Did you know we cougars used to live all over the Americas: from the Yukon to the southern Andes. We're very adaptable except when people leave us nowhere to turn. Now we're extinct in the east, except for a tiny Florida population. One source estimates there are 50,000 breeding cougars left but numbers are declining (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)). Today, Oregon claims a growing cougar population and California is working to protect its cougars. Cougar hunting is still permitted in every state except California; over 2,000 permits are issued annually.
Interesting Cougar Facts:
- We can leap from the ground up to a height of 18 feet into a tree! We can leap 40 feet horizontally.
- Like domestic cats, we can purr.
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Above are a few of my friends at CARE.
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| And here I am with my Scooby Doo toy relaxing on a mattress in CARE's medical center. Sometimes when the weather is extra hot or extra cold, they bring me in here. I just love all the attention!
Stay tuned for my next installment! I'll be back next month with the happenings at CARE.
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