The Oakland Zoo just stepped up and rescued its 27th mountain lion, this one a four- to five-week old cub named Briar, who was found wandering motherless in El Dorado County over the weekend.
The Oakland Zoo has rather famously taken in more than two dozen mountain lions over the last 12 years or so — when the mountain lions are burned badly in wildfires, suffering from hypothermia in the winter months, or when cubs are simply found abandoned and malnourished. And the zoo just took in mountain lion Number 27 in their Bay Area Cougar Action Team (BACAT) efforts on Monday, as KRON4 reports the Oakland Zoo has rescued another baby mountain lion cub, this one found abandoned and motherless over the weekend in the northeast California region of El Dorado County.
“He was found in El Dorado County by a resident,” the zoo posted to Facebook Wednesday morning. They added that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife “conducted both ground and wildlife camera surveillance in hopes of finding a mother, but sadly no mountain lions were detected in the area for several days and the decision was made to save this orphaned cub.”
According to the zoo’s post, they’ve named the male youngster Briar because of his spots resembling the vines of a blackberry bush. He’s been determined to be somewhere between four and five weeks old, which makes Briar one of the youngest mountain lions the zoo has ever taken in from a rescue mission.
“We will take care of little Briar until a forever home for him can be found,” the zoo said in their post. But that forever home may be right here in the zoo’s large mountain lion habitat, or another environment in captivity. A zoo representative told KRON4 that “Mountain lion cubs need about two years with their mother in the wild to learn survival skills. Because Briar is so young, he lacks those skills and cannot return to the wild.”
It is unclear why the cub was abandoned, and it may be simply because the mother and the other cubs died. The zoo notes that mountain lions are threatened by habitat loss caused by development sprawl, are often hit by cars, and of course, sometimes fall prey to wildfires.
Related: Orphaned Baby Mountain Lion Improving After Blood Transfusion at Oakland Zoo [SFist]
Image Oakland Zoo via Facebook
