November 18, 1976
Leonita, a 5-month-old female mountain lion cub, was transported last week from the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute in Alpine to the Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington, Illinois. Leonita was about 6 weeks old when she was found orphaned in the wilds of West Texas. She has been raised with tender loving care by the staff at CDRI and now is a robust 35 pounds and a half-grown puma.
The Chihuahuan Desert Experience, CDRI’s educational facility which will contain live animals in naturalistic enclosures, is still in the planning stages. Leonita’s home at the current CDRI headquarters, provided by the Alpine Independent School District, was not adequate for the fast-growing mountain lion. Staff members at CDRI felt the facilities at the newly remodeled zoo in Bloomington would be the best place for Leonita.
Leonita will mature around 1 and 1/2 years and then, according to Randall Carney, zoo director, will join their male puma, Roger, to be one of the mated pairs of big cats on exhibit at the zoo. The CDRI has been promised a cub from Roger and Leonita’s first litter to be placed in the Chihuahuan Desert Experience, which by then should be a reality in West Texas.
“We will get the kitten before her eyes are open,” said Dr. Dwight Deal, CDRI general manager, “and her human handler will raise her from the beginning. This should greatly increase our chances of ending up with a relatively tame animal.”
Leonita was delivered to the zoo personally by Dr. Granger Hunt, research director at the CDRI and other CDRI research associates on their way to the Raptor Research Foundation Meetings at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
