Jumanji Leopard and Our Evolution of Thought

 

I suspect that our tour guides just don’t know what to say about Jumanji the black leopard because I often overhear people saying, or I read in some article that Jumanji came from the pet trade.  His story online and in the Safari Guide is below and does not say that, even though it is true in a sense.  Jumanji’s parents, Sabre and Lola were pets who were rescued by Big Cat Rescue but Jumanji was born here on 2/23/96.  Back then we didn’t know any better and the people who advised us were breeders who said these were endangered species (true) and that they should be bred for conservation purposes (false).  By 1997 we had figured out that none of the wild cats in private hands were part of the Species Survival Plans (SSP) and thus could never be used for any legitimate conservation breeding program.  That is why we stopped breeding cats in 1997.

 

We had a few accidents in the first couple of years after that as we were trying to get all of the cats separated, spayed and neutered.  Like TrickE and MrE the Amur Leopard Cats whose parents were in their late teens and thought too old to breed, Windstar Bobcat who was born to a hybrid father, who should have been sterile as the result of being a lynx hybrid, and the bearcats Mocha, Bean and Thing whose parents had been separated.  We later discovered that binturongs are delayed ovulators meaning they can get pregnant but not have the babies until conditions are optimal.  (Thank goodness, because we thought they might be the result of immaculate conception and that would have really messed with some of our religious beliefs.)

 

I use Jumanji’s stop as a way to introduce guests to our evolution of thought.  While people are captivated by his beauty I say, “Big Cat Rescue was not always what it is today.  Jumanji was born here in ‘96 because in the early years we were told that these were rare and endangered species that should be bred for future generations.  What we learned was that none of the wild cats in private hands will ever be bred for return to the wild.  In fact, the more we came to learn about these magnificent cats, the more we realized that they don’t belong in cages at all.  They were designed to roam hundreds of square miles and it is cruel to confine them to cages measured in square feet.  As a result, we stopped breeding in 1997 and began working on ways to end the abuses that cause so many beautiful cats like Jumanji to end up in cages.”

 

This helps you set the stage for later questions when people ask about cats on the tour path who were born here.  We don’t post on their signs or on the website that they were born here because if a person only lands on that page, or only notices that sign, they may come away with the belief that it is OK to breed cats for lives of confinement.  We need to be sure they get the whole answer.

 

I have also heard people say that he was Jamie's pet, but in 1996 when he was born, Jamie was 16 and was feverishly working to complete high school two years early because she was needed so badly at the sanctuary to help with all of the cats.  The kittens had to be fed every two hours for weeks, then every four hours, then every six.

 

Jumanji and Black Magic were litter mates and Magic was a stargazer and very ill and hard to feed.  Auroara the tiger was a cub (not born here) at that time as were some servals, caracals and bobcats.  Jamie was feeding all of them around the clock.

 

There were some high profile cases where Jamie walked Jumanji on a leash, including the People Magazine article, one in the Palm Beach Post and then at a fundraiser in Chicago for the Cheetah Conservation Fund.  We used to tell the story, which is pretty funny, about the latter, but don't any more because we don't want people to think that they too could walk a leopard on a leash.  It was a bad idea then and we know better now.

 

This was the story that we don’t share on tours but I kept in my diary:

 

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