Senior bobcat dies at Cosley Zoo in Wheaton

The very last of Cosley Zoo’s resident bobcats has died right after establishing problems due to age-relevant kidney illness.

Valentino, better known as “Val,” was euthanized on Xmas Day. The 19-year-old bobcat had been in declining health and fitness, officers at the Wheaton zoo stated.

Val and one more bobcat, Salvatore, the introvert of the pair, experienced shared their exhibit at Cosley for virtually a decade. Sal passed absent in 2019 at the age of 17. He also had kidney disease, a typical problem in senior cats.

Val endeared himself to zookeepers and website visitors with his playful antics. When the California natives experienced their very first snowfall, the far more reserved Sal sat on his heated rock whilst Val took a tumble in the white stuff.

“Right from the start off, Val’s huge individuality was on screen,” the zoo reported in a assertion.

The bobcats were being transferred to the zoo in 2012 from a wildlife rehabilitator in California. Observed in an attic of a personal home, Sal and Val had put in just about all of their lives at the humane modern society prior to coming to Cosley.

The zoo welcomed their arrival with a new show built for the duo. Seamless, stainless steel netting offered primary viewing of the cats, elusive hunters in the wild, and their surroundings, complete with a drinking water element and climbing logs.

“For the reason that bobcats are usually solitary animals, it was specifically remarkable for us to explore a pair of cats that wanted a residence and could be housed jointly,” the zoo’s statement mentioned. “Sal and Val settled into their new atmosphere extremely swiftly, exceeding our wildest expectations.”

With their fatalities, the bobcat habitat is now vacant.

1 of two cat species native to Illinois, bobcats landed on the state’s endangered species record in 1977. But moratoriums on hunting and habitat preservation opened the doorway to a comeback for the creatures. Now bobcats are observed statewide.