About a month ago, this lion had surgery to remove a large (volleyball sized) blockage from her intestine. She had her belly shaved in addition to her upper paws and lower arms for the IV. She's up and running and back on her normal diet again, but last week when I got these photos she was still growing in her fur.
She's about 16 years old, which is sorta getting up there for a mountain lion. She was originally kept as a pet (!!!) in Nevada, where keeping wild animals is legal with proper permits (though it's still a really BAD idea 98% of the time). Sadly, while her owner had the permits, he didn't have the ability to care for a full grown lion. Instead of finding a better place for her, he kept her on a two foot chain in a junkyard. When he went for vacation one day, he hired a little boy to care for "his pets." The boy had the sense to see that the animals he kept were very sick (she was given a frozen, plastic wrapped chicken everyday--no water or anything else) and the authorities were contacted. She was rehabilitated, but between being kept captive and having been declawed (possibly with chocolate covered rusty pliers, the job was really poorly done) the people working with her knew she'd never make it in the wild. After she was healthy again she moved to a permanent home at Lindsay Wildlife museum. That was 12 years ago.
R. Moore
R. Moore
