A starving cougar in Washington state wandered into the the Center Valley Animal Rescue to find help, and now the creature is being rehabilitated in at The Cameron Park Zoo.
Sara Penhallegon from the animal rescue opened up a pen on her property a couple of weeks ago and found a very big cat, that cat was in very bad shape.
"I suspect it was going there to die, considering the condition it was in," Penhallegon told KING-TV - our sister station in Washington.
A team of animal caretakers suspect this cougar's mother died before the cub learned how to fend for herself and find food, leaving her to starve. While she was extremely underweight they were able to get her into stable condition but knew she would not survive in the wild.
This is when the Cameron Park Zoo was contacted.
"We have been on a list looking for a friend for Tawakoni [the zoo's only mountain lion] a companion for her," Manda Butler, the lead curator at Cameron Park Zoo, said.
The Waco zoo agreed to be the forever home for the cub and she was flown into the Texas after spending two weeks at the Center Valley Animal Rescue in Washington.
The cub is currently in quarantine for at least 30 days, a protocol all new animals follow when they arrive at the Cameron Park Zoo.
"The fact that she was severely underweight and went without food for a time we're gonna need to get her back to a healthy weight and make sure she's comfortable with staff before and we can consider moving her to the exhibit," Butler said.
The mountain lion does not yet have a name, right now they're focused on making sure she is healthy, but they said zoo-goers could potentially have a say on what she is named.
"We will either vote among the staff or we will do some type of naming contest," Butler said.
There is no date set on when she will be in the exhibit, it depends on how she grows and reacts to being in captivity.
