“A starving cougar in Washington state wandered into the right place at the right time to find help, and now the creature is being rehabilitated in Texas.
There are a lot of different animals at Sara Penhallegon’s animal rescue, but this one was pretty wild. She opened up a pen on her Jefferson County property a couple of weeks ago and found a very big cat.
‘It had a pile of old hay in there and made itself at home, just curled up in the hay,’ she said.
It turned out to be a young cougar that was in very bad shape. The animal, barely a year old, was literally starving to death.
‘I suspect it was going there to die, considering the condition it was in,’ said Penhallegon.
Fortunately, the dying cougar had somehow found its way to Central Valley Animal Rescue where Penhallegon and her team save the lives of animals every day.
They believe the cougar’s mother recently died before she had taught her cub to fully fend for itself. Cubs typically stay with their mothers between 18 and 36 months.
Without her mom, this one didn’t stand a chance.
‘This was a cat that had not learned to hunt yet. It had no way to take care of itself or feed itself,’ said Penhallegon. ‘When its mom died, that would’ve been a death sentence for this cat unless it found itself a rehabilitation center it could check itself into!’
The animal weighed just 34 pounds when it collapsed in the hay on Penhallegon’s property, which is 50 pounds underweight for a cat of its size. The team nursed it back to health and the cougar put on a 10 quick pounds.”
View the whole story here: https://www.king5.com/article/life/animals/starving-cougar-finds-her-way-to-olympic-peninsula-animal-rehab-just-in-time/281-0b5beed5-cd9b-447a-b0db-cf7dc1f95c13