Sioux is a female bobcat who was born in 2013 and sent to the Mobile Zoo in Alabama along with another bobcat named Lakota.  Some say they were taken from the wild, and that they are siblings, but no one seems to know for sure.  What we do know is that the zoo owner, John Hightower, was arrested on 28 counts of animal cruelty. The Mobile County Animal Control seized the starving, neglected animals to send them to proper sanctuaries.

At its peak the Mobile Zoo housed more than 75 animals. In addition to lions and tigers there were bears, monkeys and birds.  USDA had repeatedly cited the zoo for rotten food in broken down freezers and rotted meat in the enclosures with the lions and tigers.  We don’t know where all the other animals ended up, but thankfully the cages are all empty now.  We know a serval was supposed to be rescued, along with Sioux and Lakota, but Hightower allegedly transferred the cat across state lines to a friend to hide him.

When Sioux arrived she was so starved and skinny that she could pass right through our regular 4×4 inch cage panels, so we had to put her in an enclosure built with 2 inch wire instead.  She was only half the size she should have been at the age of four when she arrived in 2017.  Sioux loves to eat, but she’s fussy about what is on the menu.  And she likes to catch her own dinner, so lizards, frogs, birds and snakes are in considerable peril if they wander in her cat-a-tat.

When native Florida bobcats come to us we rehab them for release back to the wild, but because Sioux’s heritage is unknown, and she spent her first 4 years in a zoo surrounded by people, she’s not a candidate for release.

See Sioux’s rescue: http://bigcatrescue.org/rescue-lakota-sioux/