Countywide : Mountain Lion Cub Moves In at Zoo

One of the county’s newest residents was not too happy with the welcome wagon Thursday.

A 12-week-old mountain lion, who was moved here Monday from Lassen County, jumped up a tree and stayed there panting and growling while about 100 schoolchildren and some dignitaries welcomed him to his new home at the Orange County Zoo.

“These cubs are beautiful, but they are animals and they command our respect,” Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said. “They are indeed Orange County residents.”

The cub’s mother was shot and killed by a rancher last month. The cub was found May 10 in the mountains between Susanville and Reno, Nev.

The California Fish and Game Department had issued the rancher a permit to shoot the cub’s mother because she had attacked a herd of goats in the area, according to zoo director Forrest de Spain.

The tawny cub, which weighs 12 pounds, seemed frightened by the noise the children made just before he entered his new home. He hissed and growled but remained on a branch. The cub will grow to 160 pounds in a year or two, de Spain said.

Zookeepers will feed him a “carnivore diet” consisting of food mountain lions normally eat in the wild.

Vasquez will be one of the people to pick the lion’s name July 31 when the zoo’s “name-that-cat” contest concludes. Any visitor to the zoo, at Irvine Regional Park in Orange, can submit a name.