From orphans to star attraction: 5 Washington cougar cubs find homes

If you were flying east on Alaska Airlines last weekend, you may have seen some special furry passengers in first class.

Rainier, Columbia and Cascade were treated like woodland royalty with an upgraded flight to their new home.

The three orphaned cougar cubs from Eastern Washington were the precious cargo of some Ohio zookeepers. The fluffy balls of spotted fur were tucked into zip-up soft carrying pouches so they could easily be bottle fed every 90 minutes.

In all, Washington Fish and Wildlife officials rescued five cubs a week ago when their mothers were killed by hunters — one cub near Dayton and quadruplets by Colville.

Rich Beausoleil with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said the hunter near Colville didn’t realize the mother had a litter when he shot her Sept. 25. The man discovered the den soon after and was quick to call state game officials.

“He felt bad,” said Beausoleil, a state cougar and bear researcher based in Wenatchee. Cougars, also known as mountain lions or pumas, breed year-round, making it difficult to know if a female has cubs, he said.

Everything was legal and because the hunter called authorities right away, another Fish and Wildlife official, Annemarie Prince, was able to scoop up the three-pound cats and meet Beausoleil half way to Wentachee to make the transfer.

Beausoleil said they had to find homes for them quickly because they are “not in the business of doing rehabilitation on our own.”

So, he checked the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) registry to see if one of its 230 accredited facilities was looking for cougars.

“They are the best of the best. ... They are the only facilities we use,” he said. Those zoos are certified regularly to make sure they have large natural enclosures, veterinarians on staff, public education and enrichment programs for the animals.

Registry officials were able to immediately connect the 3-week-old Colville cubs with zoos. The Toledo facility wanted the two females, Cascade and Columbia, and the older cub, Rainier, from Dayton; the Bergen County Zoo in New Jersey took the two males.

In all, it was just a week from the time they were found to their pampered plane ride.

The zoo in northwest Ohio hadn’t had a cougar for 27 years before the cubs arrived. The animals were once found all over North and South America, but have not been seen in Ohio for more than a 100 years, said officials. While not endangered, they are considered threatened.

Washington state currently has about 2,000 cougars in the wild.

Beausoleil calculates some 27 million people a year are seeing Washington state cougars in the 25 facilities where Fish and Wildlife has helped place them.

That education benefits the species, he said.

This story was originally published October 7, 2017 at 1:41 PM with the headline "From orphans to star attraction: 5 Washington cougar cubs find homes."