Stone Zoo's 9-year-old cougar dies after months of seizures: ‘Incredibly sad day'

Stone Zoo is mourning the loss of its beloved 9-year-old cougar "Blue."

The zoo in Stoneham, Massachusetts, said the cougar had been experiencing seizures for several months and was responding well to treatment until the last 24 hours when he was no longer responding to medication and experienced multiple seizures.

The heartbreaking decision was made to humanely euthanize the cougar, due to the frequency and severity of the seizures, his rapidly declining health and a poor prognosis for his quality of life, the zoo said.

“We are completely heartbroken to share this news about Blue. He has been an incredible presence at Stone Zoo since he arrived as a very young cub. Guests had the opportunity to watch Blue grow up, and we know there are many people who love him as much as we do,” said John Linehan, Zoo New England President and CEO. “This is an incredibly sad day, and we appreciate everyone who is keeping our animal care team in their thoughts. Blue will be dearly missed.”

Blue pounced his way into everyone's hearts in 2014 when he arrived at Stone Zoo as a tiny 5-pound cub, Linehan said. The 4-week-old cub had been found alone near Salmon, Idaho, and experts determined that it would not be possible to successfully return him to the wild.

He needed a home, and the staff at Stone Zoo was happy to provide this for him, so Pete Costello, the zoo's assistant curator, traveled to Idaho to bring Blue to his new home in Massachusetts.

Linehan said the zoo's dedicated and skilled animal care teams at Stone Zoo worked around-the-clock to hand raise the frisky young cub.

Once he was big enough, zoo guests had the opportunity to watch him explore his nursery space. Once he outgrew that space, he settled into his permanent home within the Treasures of the Sierra Madre section of the zoo.

Blue loved to roll around pumpkins, and he also especially liked different scents including ginger powder and pumpkin pie spice, according to the zoo's Facebook post.

“With cougars, their aloofness makes them so endearing, and Blue took this to another level," Costello said. "Blue was one of my favorites, and he will be greatly missed not only by me, but by everyone who knew him.”

According to the zoo, the cougar is also known as a panther, painter, mountain lion, puma and catamount and is one of the largest wild cats in North America. Although the cougar’s United States range has diminished throughout the last century, they still have the widest distribution of any land mammal in the Western Hemisphere. They range from the Yukon in Canada through the western portion of the United States and a small portion of the eastern U.S. to Patagonia. Cougars are found in all habitats from lowlands to mountainous regions and from deserts to tropical forests.