Allegations of mistreatment of Solvang cougar

SCOTT STEEPLETON, NEWS-PRESS CITY EDITOR

The trip from an animal rescue facility in Solvang to a zoo in New York has not been a good one for a cougar cub who, along with its sister, was found wandering and malnourished in a residential neighborhood in early April, the News-Press has learned.

Possible shoddy treatment by a baggage handler at Syracuse Hancock International Airport, who apparently reveled in parading the young cat around for buddies on the back of a moving cart, is just one incident that may have left the animal, in the words of the man now ultimately responsible for its care, panicked and spooked.

“Let’s just say it’s a little on the aggressive side,” Mike Janis, director of the Binghamton Zoo at Ross Park, told the News-Press on Thursday.

The cougar arrived at the zoo, in upstate New York about seven miles north of the Pennsylvania border, on May 11, bound for the soon-to-open $500,000 Wonders of Nature exhibit, which Mr. Janis said will feature cougars, snow leopards and meerkats.

But a month after it arrived, the cougar is still not ready for its debut.

“Health-wise, it’s doing very well,” he said. “Attitude-wise, it is definitely a wild cat.”

After a month, said Mr. Janis, zoo staff would expect the animal to be more comfortable in its new surroundings. But that’s not quite the case.

“We have volunteers sitting with it, not in the same cage because it would take their faces off, but in the same building, with a radio on, trying to calm the little girl,” he said.

The cougars have been a lightning rod for controversy since they were taken from the Animal Rescue Team Inc. facility, after being tracked to Aarhus Drive in Solvang by the nonprofit organization’s executive director, Julia Di Sieno.

“It’s nauseating what’s been done to these cubs,” Ms. Di Sieno, told the News-Press Thursday.

“When they were separated by just 20 yards, these cubs were crying for each other,” she said.

As a result of the April capture of the 3-month-old cats, in which Ms. Di Sieno and an assistant allegedly defied a Fish & Game warden’s order not to tranquilize the cats and “darted” them anyway, Ms. Di Sieno has been the subject of an investigation that could be turned over to the District Attorney’s Office for possible prosecution.

A Fish & Game spokesman told the News-Press on Thursday that the investigation has not yet been completed.

From the beginning, Ms. Di Sieno urged keeping the cougars together, pleas that fell on deaf ears.

Kevin Brennan, a biologist with Fish & Game, determined where the cats ultimately were sent, according to department spokesman Harry Morse. Mr. Brennan was in the field and not available for comment on Thursday.

But Ms. Di Sieno isn’t the only person who called for the cats to be kept together.

“They should not have split the cubs up,” Joe Maynard, president of the Rosamond-based nonprofit Exotic Feline Breeding Compound’s Feline Conservation Center, told the News-Press.

Mr. Maynard, who has been involved in wild and exotic animal rescues since 1969 and helped Fish & Game write the parameters for caging such animals, said familiarity goes a long way.

“These two cubs should have stayed together until they become adults, about 2 years old,” he said.

“It’s less stress on them.”

Even Binghamton Zoo’s Mr. Janis was looking forward to keeping the pair together.

“We would have taken both,” he said.

Mr. Janis said he could have gone through a breeder to get cougars for his zoo, but that would just encourage more breeding. Instead, he contacted the nonprofit Mountain Lion Foundation.

That was in March.

“The word spreads through the grapevine, so when these (the Solvang cougars) became available, we were the first ones they called, because we were first on the list.”

After learning that the other cougar would be going elsewhere, Mr. Janis said he was disappointed. But the Northeast Wisconsin Zoo, near Green Bay, he added, is an excellent facility.

Calls to “NEW Zoo” for comment Thursday were not returned.

Shipping the cougar from California to New York cost $500, but the trip wasn’t exactly first-class.

The metal-mesh windows of the cat’s portable kennel were left uncovered, said Mr. Janis, allowing the cat to see out.

“What we would have done is put some burlap on the sides so she couldn’t see what was going on around her. It would be much more secure,” he said.

“Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, so it was panicked and spooked during the flight.”

“And at Syracuse airport, nobody wanted to get it off the plane because they were afraid of it,” added Mr. Janis. “If it was covered, they could have done it.”

The cat’s perceived poor treatment apparently didn’t end there.

“Somebody finally got it out of the cargo hold, then they put it on one of their carts and drove it around and showed it off to their buddies,” said Mr. Janis.

A request for comment from airport administration went unanswered.

The cougar was transported to Binghamton, about 80 miles south of the airport — and zoo staff spend time every day trying to coax it out of its funk and into accepting its new home.

The effects of the trip may have taken a toll on the animal.

“I’m not sure it made it this way, but it didn’t help either,” said Mr. Janis. “It had a bad flight.”

“It probably would have been easier on it if one place had gotten both of the cats.”

e-mail: ssteepleton@newspress.com