Month: March 2023

Azreal Cheetah (2020)

Azreal Cheetah (2020)

Farewell sweet boy – 2020

Azreal

In the summer of 2019 we were thrilled to announce our first-ever Cheetah resident, Azreal. He was part of the Survival Species Program and came from Texas. When it came time for him to retire at nine years old, we were excited to provide him with a forever home. He was a beautiful boy, very laid back, and seemed to be doing well. However one morning he didn’t want to eat. On the second day our vet team came out, pulled blood, urine, gave fluids, treated with cerenia, omeprazole, convenia, famotidine and did an ultrsound to see why he wasn’t eating. Nothing showed up with the ultrasound, so they woke him up and we waited to hear back about his bloodwork. We checked on him every two hours and at 3am I found him gone 🙁 A necropsy showed chronic gastritis and esophagitis and he had passed from septic shock.

Losing him was completely unexpected and we’re still trying to deal with it. Bringing him to WildCat Ridge Sanctuary was a very long process and we were so excited to be able to care for him. Everyone involved assured us that sometimes these things happen and we never find the reason why, but it gutted us. We wanted to thank all the folks who worked so hard to get him here, he was a wonderful boy and to lose him has been one of the hardest things we’ve had to face.

Posted by Cheryl Tuller in Cheetahs, Memorials

Nala – The heartbreaking story of a pet serval

Nala - The heartbreaking story of a 'pet' serval

Nala Serval Instagram In early February of 2023, the owner of a serval in Canada passed away. A friend of the owner contacted us to see if we could give the cat a home. We said yes and excitedly prepared for her arrival while all the import paperwork was being done. We learned that this little serval was even an
Instagram star with her own account and followers! The videos were supposed to show what a great “pet” she was. When we watched the videos, we saw something very different – and very heartbreaking.

We’re sharing Nala’s story so we can show everyone the hard truth about keeping servals – or any wildcats – as “pets.” We are adamant that all breeding and selling of wildcats as “pets” must stop now.

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Posted by Cheryl Tuller in Blog, Education