Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/hungry-orphan-cougar-seeks-help/

Volunteers at the Center Valley Animal Rescue in Washington state had an unexpected visitor recently.

That center was founded by Sarah Penhallegon in 2002, near the Olympic Mountains. Many different abandoned animals have been saved by the rescue since the time it was founded, but nobody expected an animal to rescue itself.

It happened when a cougar cub that was orphaned and needed care found its way to the rescue. She came to the Penhallegon animal rehabilitation center and curled up in a pen.

According to KIRO7, Penhallegon said that it is the first time that something like this has happened. The pen had some hay inside of it, so the cub just made itself at home.

Penhallegon feels that the cub was in serious need of help and thinks that it may have even have gone there to die. Fortunately, they found the cougar in time to help save it.

WTSP reports that cougar cubs will stay with their mother for up to 36 months until they can live and feed on their own. This cub, however, appears to have been an orphan and was underweight, so it likely would not have survived in the wild.

“This was a cat that had not learned to hunt yet. It had no way to take care of itself or feed itself,” said Penhallegon to KIRO7. “When its mom died, that would’ve been a death sentence for this cat unless it found itself a rehabilitation center it could check itself into!”

The cub was fed and nursed by Penhallegon for two weeks and then it was ready to go on to a new environment.

In the state of Washington, you can’t return a captive cougar in the wild so it is now living at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas zoo.

Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog