MORE Dr. Jamie Peyton, UC Davis Veterinary Medical Hospital, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) staff evaluate a lion s burned paw pads, as it is treated for burns sustained from the Bobcat Fire, at the Wildlife Investigations Lab, California, U.S., September 23, 2020. Photo by California Department of Fish and Wildlife/Reuters.
Gary Potter wasn’t paying much attention when he walked outside of his Monrovia home one night last September. And then he looked up.
There it was, the color of caramel, in his yard.
“The cat was stretched out right here in the grass, just staring at me. And I went, ‘hello,’” Potter said with a laugh in a video shot by the non-profit Cougar Conservancy. “And I just kind of slowly backed myself up and back into the house.”
Inside the state’s pioneering new Wildlife Disaster Network
Photo above courtesy of Oakland Zoo. Bear photo below courtesy of Denise Upton/Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care.
Captain Cal, a baby mountain lion, was only four to six weeks old when the Zogg Fire tore through northwestern California last fall, separating him from his mother. Whether she was killed by the inferno or simply unable to find her lost cub among the destruction is unknown, but the firefighters who found Cal just outside Redding bone peeking through burned toes, whiskers singed to their roots felt he deserved a chance at survival.