Teeka makes herself at home at the zoo

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This article was published 03/02/2015 (3973 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s a new tenant at the Assiniboine Park Zoo, and you can call her Teeka.

The zoo received a four-month-old, female cougar cub from the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in early December.

The cub was found orphaned on a construction site in Calgary with no mother in sight and wasn’t in very good physical condition.

“When they found her in Calgary she was dehydrated, weak and not in particularly good shape,” Janice Martin, curator at the Assiniboine Park Zoo, said.

Martin says she stayed at that rehabilitation society for a few weeks prior to being moved to Winnipeg. She was put in quarantine for 30 days upon her arrival at the zoo to receive health tests and the exhibit featuring her opened on Jan. 23.

Shortly after, two public naming phases took place to determine a name for the wild cougar.

According to Laura Curtis, manager of brand and communications at the Assiniboine Park Zoo, many suggestions reappeared 10 to 20 times.

“It was great to have those suggestions from the community and it was really cool how people came up with lots of names relating to Calgary, like Cally (for Calgary) and Chinook,” Curtis said.

The top five names in the final voting poll on Facebook included: Chinook, Teeka, Cally, Sheridan and Hope. Teeka stole first place with 283 votes.

Aside from passing all her health tests, Teeka has been eating very well and is now in the 20-pound range. She is also thriving inside her fairly large enclosure on the north side of the park beside the snow leopards.

 “Since she lost her mom at a very young age, she wasn’t able to socialize or learn the ways of the world, but being so close to the snow leopards she is learning some typical cat behaviour and maturing,” Martin said.

She explains how the snow leopards make a “chuffing” noise, which is hard to describe but is a warm-welcome, sort of purring noise towards Teeka. The animals watch each other closely and Teeka picks up on various behavioural clues. While she has been a little bit shy, being beside the snow leopards is helping her gain the confidence to explore her entire enclosure.

For those looking to visit Teeka, it is undetermined exactly how long she will remain at the Assiniboine Park Zoo, as staff are trying to make her part of a species survival program.

Martin says there are a number of species survival programs in the zoo community across North America, which focuses on retaining and mating genetics.

“It’s basically to keep viable populations of different animals within the zoo community and the cougars become one of them,” Martin said.

With two adult cougars at the zoo already, they’re looking to find Teeka a spot with a male cougar that would be of suitable genetic compatibility. In the meantime, Teeka is jumping, climbing and hiding from her many visitors at the zoo.