MRS CLAWS UPDATE OCT 2016

Mrs. Claws was rescued when she was a tiny kitten by a rehabber in Christmas, Florida.  She had been bitten in the head by an unknown animal.  Her wounds were treated and fully healed during her six weeks stay at the facility.

Because Mrs. Claws was so young she would require special care and training to prepare her for a life in the wild.  The rehabber knew about our bobcat rehab program and thought Big Cat Rescue would be a great place for Mrs. Claws to continue her rehabilitation. It just so happened that we had made arrangements to take in a more recent rescue from the rehabber, a young male bobcat who had suffered a broken leg.  We were happy to take the pair and had hoped to raise and release them together.

Mr. Claws received the lifesaving surgery he needed and Mrs. Claws began her training in hunting and wild behaviors.  Both kittens were progressing nicely and seemed very interested in one another from their neighboring enclosures.

Through careful observation the pair were introduced.  They got along great for a short while.  However their friendship came to an abrupt end over a scuffle involving food resulting in them having to be separated.

Mr. Claws recovered completely during the following months and was later released.  Meanwhile Mrs. Claws repeatedly showed signs of mental insufficiency.  At first we thought she may have a problem with her vision.  She would run into doors that she had watched and heard being shut, she would nip and bite near her food using her sense of smell to pinpoint its location, and she would occasionally stumble over logs on the ground. She was examined twice and ophthalmologist Dr. Miller determined her vision was fine.  Leaving us only one conclusion, she may have suffered an injury to her brain from the bite wounds that were inflicted upon her as a kitten.

Throughout her rehabilitation she was continuously tested and challenged in new ways.  Her food was hidden, she was given different types of prey that would be harder to catch including birds and squirrels, and her environment was rearranged to evaluate her ability to navigate and adapt to change.  She eagerly accepted each challenge sometimes conquering them and other times not.  To make things worse she would succeed at something one day and fail at the same challenge the next only to succeed again the following day.  Her ability to learn and her reactions were not consistent.  There were times when her live prey would walk right past her and she would run in the opposite direction looking for it.  There were other times when she was given whole prey and she would lose track of it and frantically look for it even though she was actually standing right on it.  These occurrences were not daily, but happened enough times to cause concern.  On the days Mrs. Claws caught her live prey she often would grasp it in odd locations. Instead deploying an efficient bite to the neck or head (an instinctual response) she would grab the prey mid body or by the back end leaving her face vulnerable to attacks.

Mrs. Claws also had no fear of people despite having no human interaction and her caregivers wearing camouflage ghillie suites.  In one test, one of our male staff (all of her caregivers are female) was sent out to her enclosure to walk around the outside and leave.  She did not run away and hide, nor did she hiss or growl.  She just watched the person come and go from her perch.  Subsequently, a few weeks later, another male volunteer was sent out to her enclosure.  She ran right over to him and followed him around the entire perimeter purring all along the way.

Our rehab team has struggled with the inevitable determination of whether or not Mrs. Claws would be able to survive on her own in the wild. She had been taught everything we could teach her.  We had hoped that with some extra time she would overcome these deficits, yet sadly she has not.

The final and most concerning scenario to take place was that of a chance encounter with four adult raccoons. Thanks to the diligent watchers of the live streaming explore.org/bigcatrescue webcam in her enclosure, footage of this encounter was captured and sent to our rehab team.  Four full grown raccoons approached Mrs. Claws’ enclosure.  She immediately ran over to them and rubbed her face and side along the wire.  Her tail upright and flicking in a playful manner.  She had no fear of these animals that would most certainly kill her in the wild. Instead she enthusiastically approached them and acted as if she wanted them to pet her.  This was not a good sign and may be the final determining factor regarding her release.

MRS CLAWS FAILED REHAB

Ms. Claws has not grown like she should and has been too small to take on the kind of prey she needs to survive.  We are gave her more time in rehab to put on some size (she’s fat, but tiny) and to hone her skills, but it just wasn’t enough.

For nine months our rehabbers and explore.org fans watched her day and night, LIVE in the Bobcat Rehab area: http://explore.org/live-cams/player/big-cat-rescue-bobcat-rehab-and-release

What we saw led us to try many different tests to see if there was any chance of getting her ready to survive on her own, but she just doesn’t have what it takes.

This video shows a pack of adult raccoons approaching her and instead of running, or positioning for a fight, she thought she could make friends.  They would have ripped her to shreds if not for the cage wire separating them.