Mountain Lion Sanctuary Tour: Tecumseh

Tecumseh, named after the great Shawnee Indian chief, joined Cooper's Rock Mountain Lion Sanctuary in September 1998. He was only three weeks old. Sanctuary volunteers collected the money to buy him from a breeder -- he was headed for an exotic animal auction, where he likely would have been bought by a private game reserve, raised, and hunted. Because he arrived so young, Tecumseh is the only cougar at the sanctuary with intact claws.

The sanctuary bottle-raised Tecumseh while building the Second Enclosure and expanding the Original Enclosure. When Burton moved to the Second Enclosure in July 1999, Tecumseh took over the newly-expanded Original Enclosure. In 2002, the sanctuary refurbished The Palace, a 50-foot-square enclosure that was designed specifically for their young and active mountain lion, and Tecumseh moved there in August of that year.

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

C. Mullens