Baby Leopard

Baby leopards are an important species for us. Here at the Bronx Zoo because they’re endangered in the wild farmers. Often hunt them because they think. The snow leopards are taking their animals as prey. If you went to Pakistan to view snow leopards. In the wild would be really lucky. If you got any kind of a view like this. We're really pleased that we had a snow leopard cub born at the Bronx Zoo four weeks ago come on chubby oh my god. The keepers are noticing that something’s not quite right. With this animal anytime. We have an animal born we always do an exam typically. We can wait eight weeks we're going to go in a little earlier and see what. Where it would be getting up and walking. But it should be crawling its real legs should be tucked in underneath. It should be crawling like this and instead. What's happening to these real legs is spread out to the side.

It ‘scrawling like this let's get our anesthetize. So that we can start the-rays so start. It with your honor back let’s focus on the hips. I'm going to try to hold them in so on the x-rays, everything looks pretty good. We're not seeing. Their problems with her joints look like the bones are growing correctly. They're not curved they're not splintered. I think it’s something that's happening as. She’s developing it may be related to the wave too. It's not really clear why this may be happening in this Cup one theory. That have is that typically baby leopards have more than one cup at a time and in this case we have just one cup. So she’s getting all the milk. She wants and probably is growing a little bit faster a little bit heavier. So it’s just harder and harder for the cup to really bring those legs underneath. Gain the strength in the way that it needs to there's any chance.

That’s been a salt correct self-correct know whether. We could go in there and do physical therapy on her with her living with the mom. It's a question it was important for the mom. The cub to stay bonded and we don't want to interfere with that bond. It affects the health of the cub but if we can’t get her legs to be corrected. She will never be able to walk over the last few days. We've tried a lot of different methods to try to get this cup to put her legs in the right spot and today. We have dr. Alvarez from the Animal Medical A center specializes in animal rehabilitation. She can hopefully give us some pointers as to where to go next. Let's watch how she's functioning and the device that you have right now. She ever rises higher on her forelimbs if you help her so these are postural tests.

So just to see if they’re aware of where their limbs are in space normally. What she should do what she may do in the front is hot the other. She does so that's normal so I just want to try something. If we support her how much better. She might be able to ambulate which is a much better function on the left. The right okay there you go so one potential thing. We might be able to the device. For her is a little harness almost like the marionette that you’ve made for that bird. So that she has some sessions where we're supporting her sternum. She's so heavy and I really. I think there's a big component of her condition alright. So let's try and see what you do without your humility does this hurt her no. I shouldn't hurt you at heart right no not at all based on. What I'm seeing with the cub today it does sound like. It might be similar to the condition. In dogs is just swimmer syndrome with summer syndrome. The muscles that are weak are that a doctor's on. 

The inside of her thigh which is why they can't get those limbs. Underneath them so if walking it looks more like swimming. Because their legs are splayed to the side puppies or kittens. Those are born with swimmer syndrome. They're frequently larger in size and they're meant. They’re carrying more weight on their body. OH, you definitely bad. I think your sciatica is fine my prognosis for this Snow Leopard is optimistic. I don't want today that she will definitely recover but in the period of approximately 30 to 40days. We should see some significant improvement. But she needs more than anything is strengthening. So if we can get her up on her feet and mobilize. I mean you saw the difference when I supported her. I mean she was really able to mobilize so much better. Then if you can combine a few of your hobbies and maybe even that harness. It should be fairly good. Therapy plan former it's really nice to hear the hobbles are working. Somebody who's really done it and really has that personal experience. I was hoping that she was going to say.

We'd see improvement in a week or two weeks but 3040 days is still not a lot of time in the overall life of the Snow Leopard. Last week one of the things the rehabilitation specialist dr. Alva raze commended for the snow leopard cub was a couple of harnesses. One to support her front half and another to support her back half. There are some commercially available harnesses unfortunately none are quite. Snow Leopard specific for exactly what we needed. Hence the trip to the pet store yesterday and him being here. On my weekend sewing. Snow Leopard clothing one of the important features. This harness is that we've added strings tout. So that we can stand up straight sowed don't also have to go the physical. Therapists when we're done with work on a Snow Leopard.

She's moving great on her front limbs. She's bright she’s strong and got a lot of energy. We just got to slow her down a little bit trying to get those back limbs under. We’ll try to attach these lateral bands. Her legs still flop out. When she walks so the idea is to try to bring those in so that they're more in a normal position. When she's actually walking in the harness. I don't have to keep pushing them in with my hands can’t watch a little support on the back. She grows and she gets bigger this becomes a certain point. Where she's going to be less tolerant of what. we ‘redoing the faster we get things in the right spot the better off we're going to being the long run you.

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