Save a Mountain Lion 2011

Big Cat Rescuers just delivered Abel the Mountain Lion, whose owner died, to his new forever home.

Thanks to many of you who donated he arrived at Safe Haven in NV at 8pm on July 29.

When a big cat collector in Poetry, Texas died she left behind 20 lions, tigers and mountain lions.  Another TX facility had found placement for the cats they couldn’t keep but at the last minute the home for one of the cougars fell through.  They asked Lynn Cuny, a member of the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries to help them in the permanent placement of some of the cats that they did not have room for and Lynn alerted GFAS.  Big Cat Rescue responded to the GFAS alert and offered to take the cougar, even though we would have to build space for him.

A former volunteer of ours, Lynda Sugasa, runs an excellent facility called Safe Haven and already has a 4,000 square foot space waiting for him, but she couldn’t make the long trip from Nevada to Texas to pick him up.  The airlines will no longer ship big cats so there weren’t any good transport options commercially available to them.  Lynda is working on a 10,000 square foot expansion for him, so Abel will have plenty of room to run.

Thanks to a five part collaboration of sanctuaries, GFAS and You this cat will soon be enjoying a 14,000 square foot home at Safe Haven.

It will mean a week long trip for our Big Cat Rescuers and about .50 or more a mile to make the 5,500 mile round trip.  Thanks to all of you who helped so far Abel has made it to Safe Haven and you can see him enjoying his huge new space below.

More details about Abel the Mountain Lion

Abel’s rescuer said, “I don’t have much history on any of the cats as the family didn’t seem to know anything or care about them at all. Some of the stories I have heard are horrifying. One of how a lion tore the legs off one of the cougars. She had them housed right next door to each other with 4X4 wire separating them. A few years ago a lioness got out of it’s stall and was shot to death. We found 3 lion skulls and a skeleton of a cougar not more than 8″ under the ground in one of the stalls. One of the cougars has had both of his back legs broken and was untreated. He is unable to straighten his legs now due to the way they healed. Another cougar had his front leg completely shattered and also left untreated.”

On the day that Abel arrived at his new forever home in NV we got word that Kane, his cage mate had died back in TX.

Here are some of the images of Abel’s new forever home at Safe Haven: