Mountain Lion Sanctuary Tour: Mariah

Mariah arrived suddenly in July 1999. After a newspaper had done a feature article on Cooper's Rock Mountain Lion Sanctuary, a phone call soon followed. A family had a three-year-old cougar as a pet, but the danger and expense was outweighing the novelty. They hoped that perhaps the sanctuary would be interested in taking her.

The sanctuary receives calls like this one regularly, but normally cannot offer assistance. However, since Mariah was an emergency, sanctuary volunteers took action. They donated money and built the Emergency Enclosure in a day. Then they went to retrieve Mariah. She was living in a 20-foot-by-8-foot dog run, with half the ground covered by a large rock. She had stopped eating, so she weighed only 70 pounds and her ribs were showing.

As a sanctuary resident, Mariah quickly put her weight back on, and in fact must now stay on a strict diet. She originally lived in the Emergency Enclosure, but moved to the Original Enclosure in August 2002.

For more pictures of Mariah, visit Mariah's Gallery.

C. Mullens