Thunder
Panthera pardus
- ASIAN LEOPARD
Thunder was born in 1994 at 1:00 on the morning of August 8th during a severe electrical storm.
Jasmine did not disconnect the umbilical cord for 35 minutes, at which time we decided to pull Thunder.
Her temperature was 87
degrees. The normal body temperature is 101.1 degrees.
She was rushed to the Zoo
Nursery where she was placed in thermal heat packs to bring here body heat
up
at a controlled rate. She
spent the next several days of life in intensive care under 24 hour
observation
as do all newborns here
at Cat Tales. (Cubs are bottle or tube fed an enriched goats milk diet
with added milk solids,
eggs, oil, vitamins and distilled water.
Eventually strained baby food
chicken is added.
The cubs must consume 20%
of their body weight daily to ensure growth.)
Since her birth, Thunder
has appeared on Discovery Channel, Animal Planet,
numerous news programs
and PBS Specials. She has been an Outreach Ambassador for the Zoo
to thousands of children
at area schools and traveled around
the Pacific Northwest to make public
appearances.
She still is very active
in these types of events and would prefer to do them all the time
since she is a Star and
thrives on the attention.
She has just one tiny
problem.....
She has always been
called the Beautiful Princess.
She also loves to go on
walks with the trainers.
Once several years ago
while on a walk on the Zoo grounds,
Thunder heard a guest
comment on a flower garden along one of the public pathways.
They said: Oh look at
the beautiful flowers.
Thunder immediately attacked and destroyed
the flowers.
It seems that there can
only be one Beautiful in her territory.
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