"Pet" Mountain Lion Killed for Walking Out Her Open Cage Door

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Animals in Entertainment, Wildlife/FreeLiving Animals

Published June 04, 2009 @ 02:19PM PT

A couple weeks ago, someone at the Kansas zoo left her cage door open. So naturally, but apparently timidly, she walked out of it.

The lion traced the fence to the edge of the zoo's timber wolf exhibit, became frightened, and ran back toward the grizzly bears. Eventually she crouched in some bushes next to the bobcat exhibit.

Cargill said the cat was never more than 150 feet from her own enclosure. (AP)

But she was nevertheless shot and killed--not tranquilized, but killed. One Kansas news station explains,

Great Bend Zoo workers only have access to a low-level tranquilizer, which wouldn’t have been strong enough to subdue the wild cat. And a licensed vet, who was a half hour away at the time, is the only person authorized to use stronger tranquilizers. So, [zoo director] Cargill made the call to have the animal killed before the situation got worse.

She never should have been captive in a zoo in the first place, but although I'm not surprised to see news reports not taking that stance, I am surprised that journalists aren't asking a very obvious question: how can you keep animals captive and not always have the means, ability, and appropriately trained staff to subdue them if necessary--not just half an hour away, but at a moment's notice, on site? Shouldn't that be a requirement, both for the safety of the animals themselves and for the safety of humans in situations such as this? Add this to the ever-growing list of the problems with keeping animals in captivity for human entertainment.

Some Kansas residents are wondering the same thing I am about the tranquilizer situation, if the comments on this article the last time I checked in are any indication. But the most interesting comment on the article comes from one of the people who apparently "donated" Precious--the name given the mountain lion by this family--to the zoo:

This so called aggressive and unpredictable mountain lion was the most well mannered and sweet animals i have ever loved. She was raised with love and respect, and she never had an aggressive attitude. She spent the majority of her life as a house cat, and she had the most amazing purr that you ever heard. . . . She was donated to Brit Spaugh Zoo 3 years ago with the promice that Teresa and I and the family would be allowed to spend time with her alone from the public view. This promise was broken immediatly when she was taken to the zoo. Then she was fixed so that she would be safe from the allready neutered male mountain lion (Bart). . . . The entire family is upset over the way things were handled by the zoo, we realize that the officers were only doing what they were trained to do and they didnt realize she was a pet and not a wild captured animal. . . .

I understand that the family is upset. I really, really do. And I'm glad to see someone speaking of this cat as the individual she clearly was, with a history, personality, and emotions. But the people who initially brought her into captivity have to take some responsibility here too. She never should have been in their home to begin with. People have no business treating mountain lions and other big cats like small domestic cats, and handing these large carnivores off to zoos when people realize that they aren't house cats after all doesn't absolve people of all that befalls the cats in zoos. And the death and caging of this animal would have been no less tragic if she'd never been a "pet."

See also "Ten Fast Facts About Exotic 'Pets'" from Born Free USA united with Animal Protection Institute.