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Aug 8, 2006 1:14 pm US/Eastern
Orphaned Snow Leopard Cub Is Bronx-Bound
Pakistani Animal Will Call Bronx Zoo Home
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CBS/AP) ―
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A snow leopard like this one at the Denver Zoo is Bronx-bound from Pakistan.
An orphaned Himalayan snow leopard cub found by a shepherd in Pakistan is bound for the Bronx Zoo, where he will be entered into its captive breeding program.
The leopard was discovered in July 2005 in the remote mountains of Pakistan's Naltar Valley after his mother and other cubs had been killed. Only seven weeks old at the time, he was too young to be left in the wild.
Under a U.S.-Pakistani agreement, the cub, named Leo and now 13 months old, was handed over Tuesday to the World Conservation Union to become part of its captive breeding program for snow leopards at the Bronx Zoo in New York.
The 55-pound leopard will board a flight for New York on Wednesday. He'll eventually be returned to northern Pakistan, where a snow leopard rehabilitation facility will be set up to help him transfer back into the wild.
Snow leopards are in danger of extinction. There are only 5,000 to 7,000 left in the wild, mainly in the Himalayas and central Asia, including about 300 in northern Pakistan.
"Leo cannot practically be released back into the wild as he does not have the survival skills normally taught to cubs by their mothers during the first 18 months of their life," the IUCN said in a statement.
The cub was handed over in a ceremony Tuesday in Islamabad, attended by Environment Minister Malik Amin Aslam and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who joked that the leopard had a "nonimmigrant visa" and could return to its homeland.
Patrick Thomas, curator of mammals at the Bronx Zoo, said it would probably take three or four years before Leo and a female leopard would produce offspring. He said the zoo could send a female leopard back with Leo when he returns to Pakistan.
The wild population of snow leopards has decreased due to declining numbers of wild prey and killings by local herders when leopards attack their livestock. The IUCN also cited the problems of poaching and an illegal trade in fur, bones and other animal parts.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
