Orphaned mountain lion cubs rescued with help of mom’s GPS collar, California zoo says

Paloma Chavez
Thu, December 14, 2023 

Three orphaned mountain lions were rescued with the help of their mom’s GPS collar, a California zoo said.

The 6-week-old cubs’ mother had died, and they wouldn’t have survived longer than a week “on their own,” according to a Dec. 13 news release from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

After getting data from the mom’s collar, a search team looked in the area, officials said.

One of the team members found a cub hiding in a hole, another was “wedged tightly between two rocks,” and the third was found in a shrub, wildlife officials said.

After looking through footage of the “remote trail,” no other cubs were found, officials said.

The cubs were treated for dehydration, but because of their age they cannot be reentered into the wild, zoo officials said.

The cubs will stay at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park where they’ll be offered a “second chance and lifelong care,” the zoo said.

“Mountain lions are a keystone species right here in our own backyard,” Lisa Peterson, executive director of the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, said in the release. “It’s been a privilege to nurse these youngsters back to full health, and we now have the honor of caring for them long term. While our research teams and our conservation partners continue their mountain lion work in the field, the Safari Park will be a refuge for these three cubs offering them native landscapes and new opportunities to thrive, while sharing the importance of coexistence among wildlife with our guests.”

Officials didn’t say how the mom died.

Mountain lions in the area face population risk and “low annual survival rates” due to their “proximity to people,” the zoo said on Facebook.

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, the University of California, Davis, Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife were involved in the rescue.

San Diego is about 120 miles southeast of Los Angeles.