Almost 5 Months Old, Bronx Native Makes Zoo Debut

All images by Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

By LISA W. FODERARO

Published: August 26, 2013

A 17-pound snow leopard, born this spring at the Bronx Zoo, is now on display, the first son of an orphaned snow leopard from Pakistan.

The cub, still unnamed, is the offspring of Leo, who was brought to the zoo after his mother and siblings were killed in 2005 in Pakistan. Snow leopards are tricky to breed in captivity since there is a brief window of fertility each year. Leo’s first attempt was not successful. But earlier this year, zoo officials paired him with Maya, a proven breeder, and the match took.

The new cub was born on April 9; officials at the zoo wanted to make sure that he was healthy and well adjusted before officially putting him on display. Until now, the cub and Maya have been kept out of public view. (In the wild, snow leopard fathers leave the scene after mating and play no role in rearing their young; so Leo, who weighs 83 pounds, is in a separate enclosure in the same exhibit, Himalayan Highlands.)

On Friday, ignoring a reporter, the cub tumbled over a rocky outcropping, playfully stalked his 66-pound mother and rubbed his face against a log. The cub is still nursing, but he has started eating solid food, primarily raw chicken.

“We let the mother do all the work,” said Lacy Martin, a senior wild animal keeper. “She’s doing an excellent job, so there’s no reason to interfere. He’s gotten much more brave and has a lot of spunk.”

Nadeem Hotiana, the press attaché at the Pakistani embassy in Washington, said in a telephone interview that the country had decided to send Leo to the Bronx Zoo because Pakistan lacked an “appropriate facility” to care for the orphaned cub.

The Bronx Zoo is the acknowledged leader in snow leopard care and husbandry. In 1903, it was the first zoo in North America to exhibit snow leopards. Since then the zoo has bred more than 70 of them. They are among the planet’s most endangered large cats, with a range limited to the remote mountains of Central Asia and parts of Bhutan, China, India, Mongolia and Russia. The Bronx Zoo now has 10 snow leopards in its collection, a sizable fraction of the total of 137 snow leopards in accredited zoos in North America.

The cub’s birth is part of the Species Survival Plan, a cooperative breeding program meant to maintain genetic diversity and demographic stability in zoo populations of threatened and endangered animals. Patrick Thomas, the zoo’s general curator and associate director, said the birth represented a “significant boost to the genetics” of the snow leopard program.

In the wild, snow leopard cubs stay with their mothers for about two years. “Right now that cub’s whole world revolves around its mother,” said Dr. Thomas, who was part of the team that traveled to retrieve Leo from the Naltar Valley in Pakistan in 2006. “He relies on her for food and companionship.”

In Pakistan, the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the zoo, has worked with local officials on a number of conservation efforts, training more than 100 rangers to monitor snow leopards and other wildlife and to stop deforestation and poaching.

“While Leo is on loan to the Bronx Zoo, we hope that his presence in the United States and ongoing bilateral cooperation on conservation efforts will help deepen the links between the people of Pakistan and the United States,” Richard G. Olson, the United States ambassador to Pakistan, said in a statement.

Dr. Asad M. Khan, Pakistan’s chargé d’affaires in Washington, also issued a statement: “It’s heartening to learn that Leo had his own cub, a male, this summer. Leo has served as a symbol of deep friendship and abiding good will between our two countries.”

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