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You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Saturday Evening Open Thread: Clouded Leopard (No Longer) On the Loose

Saturday Evening Open Thread: Clouded Leopard (No Longer) On the Loose

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The word leopard startled quite a few people who didn’t realize this was a 30-pound feline:

A missing clouded leopard was found safe at the Dallas Zoo late Friday afternoon, hours after its disappearance led the zoo to close.

Nova, the 4-year-old leopard, was reported missing from an enclosure authorities believe was intentionally cut open.

“Initial indications are she is not injured,” zoo spokeswoman Kari Streiber said. “She is being evaluated by our veterinary staff right now.”

Streiber said Nova was located on zoo grounds approximately 4:40 p.m., and was safely secured about 35 minutes later. Further updates on her status will be available Saturday, she said.

Dallas Zoo President Gregg Hudson said staff found a “suspicious opening” in the enclosure Nova shares with her sister, Luna, in the morning. Nova was no longer in the habitat.

“It was clear that this opening was not a habitat failure, it was not an exhibit failure and it wasn’t keeper error,” he said.

Sgt. Warren Mitchell, a Dallas police spokesman, confirmed police have opened a criminal investigation into the leopard’s disappearance…

The zoo stressed that the “very much nocturnal” cat, who weighs about 25 pounds, was not a danger to people. She also was not “a greater risk for pets” than other animals native to urban North Texas, the zoo said.

“This is intensely frustrating,” said Harrison Edell, the zoo’s executive vice president for animal care and conservation. “This is a cat of conservation concern that is not a pet. She is a critically important member of our family at Dallas Zoo. She means a lot to us.”

Edell said the staff checks enclosures multiple times a day, starting with a head count of every animal “first thing in the morning.”

He also said that the animals are very attached to a “home territory” or a space they know — and for Nova, that was the space immediately adjacent to her habitat. She and her sister are “attached at the hip,” he said…

Very happy Nova is safe again, and I hope the numbskull responsible for violating her enclosure is prosecuted to the full extent of the law. (Am I wrong to assume, from what I’ve read about Dallas, there’s about an 80% chance some moron thought they could score a high-value exotic pet for resale or bragging rights?)

And now it’s safe to share some of the twitter japery…

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    46Comments

    5. 5.

      Jim, Foolish Literalist

      So glad that story ended well. I had no idea they were so small. I thought the clouded leopard was a sub-species (or however you say that) of the snow leopard

      Reply
    7. 7.

      James E Powell

      @Leto:

      Normies elected George Santos & a host of Republicans because there were local news reports on crime & the price of gas is too high.

      Reply
    12. 12.

      eclare

      So glad the kitty was found.  And I think the tweet suggesting a high shelf with precious breakable family heirlooms to lure the kitty was spot on!

      Reply
    20. 20.

      James E Powell

      @piratedan:

      Agree. Also, coach didn’t get two – TWO! – unsportsmanlike conduct penalties & line up offsides to nullify the one really good defensive play of the 2nd half. That would be anti-vaxx dickweed Joey Bosa, the highest paid player on the team.

      Reply
    27. 27.

      Redshift

      I was at an event once at a place that also had a sanctuary for African Jungle Cats. They look a lot like domestic cats, but maybe 1 & 1/2 times as big. We got to see them up close, and they’re so cute that you really want to pet them, but then they have this look that says “you know I’m a wild animal, right?”

      Reply
    28. 28.

      Eolirin

      @Leslie: Idk. I suspect the political calculus is not so simple as all that, given that there are legitimate divides on this across the factions of the NYS Democratic party. She’s opting to favor the more moderate establishment faction over the progressive/union/abortion rights factions, which, given how the election went here may not be the wrong play.

      Keep in mind that Hakeem Jeffries is in support here. I think she’s likely pushing too hard and setting up more of a no win conflict than is safe, but if she ultimately wins that fight the people she’s winning the support of are possibly more important to her governing coalition than the ones she’s pissing off

      ETA: This is a very Cuomo thing to do, the biggest difference is that he wouldn’t be losing this much and when he did it, as a man, it was him being an asshole rather than him being clueless.

      Reply
    31. 31.

      James E Powell

      @Eolirin:

      if she ultimately wins that fight the people she’s winning the support of are possibly more important to her governing coalition than the ones she’s pissing off

      If she was good at her job, she’d have both.

      Splitting the Democratic coalition into hostile camps has never done anything but put Republicans in power.

      Reply
    33. 33.

      rikyrah

      I saw a TikTok tonight of a cat who had figured out how to remove the doorstop that was put in, six feet high, so that the cat couldn’t open the door. Watching the cat calculate how they would have to jump in order to reach the stopper and remove it…and then watch them proceed to work the regular lock on the door and open it👀😲😲

      Reply
    34. 34.

      Geminid nip

      @Eolirin: I ha ve been following Tom Watson (the NYC professor not the golfer) and his coverage of the LaSalle nomination. Watson is himself anti-LaSalle. Early on he said that the response ogf New York’s unions would be key to this political fight, and they have since come out strongly against Mr. Mr. LaSalle’s elevation to the state highest court. Watson faults Governor Hochul for not consulting labor leaders beforehand and nominating a more liberal judge when the court majority is conservative (for New York, that is).

      From what I’ve read in state media I tend to agree with Watson and I hope Hochul withdraws LaSalle’s nomination. That said, I think LaSalle’s conservative record has been exaggerated, and some of his fiercest critics are never liked Hochul anyway and are using this affair to tear her down.

      That doesn’t make LaSalle a good nominee though. I just hope that Hochul comes out of this without too much damage. She’s not only the Governor, she is also the party leader and I don’t think one mistake makes her a bad one.

      New York Democrats have always seemed like a feuding bunch to me, and this won’t change no matter how LaSalle’s nomination turns out. But I think if they are to succeed statewide they need Hochul to succeed as Governor.

      Reply
    36. 36.

      Geminid

      @Baud: One of the cases LaSalle’s opponents cite found that the State Attorney’s subpoena of a chain of “Pregnancy Emergency” centers  (that try to steer pregnant women away from abortions) was overly broad, a “fishing expedition.”

      LaSalle’s defenders say this was a civil liberties case; his detractors say it proves he is against women’s reproductive freedom.

      Reply
    37. 37.

      Baud

      @Geminid:

      Ok, thanks. I agree that’s not enough to call him anti-abortion, if that’s all there is.

      ETA: Although if labor is adamantly opposed too, doesn’t sound like a good pick overall.

      Reply
    38. 38.

      Geminid

      @Baud: City and State-New York has had good coverage of the LaSalle nomination, as have local and state newspapers.

      When Hochul nominated LaSalle a number of New York City’s U.S. Representatives came out for him, including Grace Meng and Nydia Velasquez. That made me doubt some of the anti-LaSalle outrage whipped up immediately by Salon Magazine  and The American Prospect and repeated here by critics of LaSalle and Hochul. Reporting I’ve read since  then makes me think his record has been twisted and exaggerated. That still doesn’t make him a good pick.

      Reply
    39. 39.

      Ken

      @BlueGuitarist: So this isn’t about the leopards eating peoples faces party?

      So far as we know now. It is still possible that the leopard was removed for training purposes.

      And now I’m imagining Dr. Evil saying “Number Five, this animal is only thirty pounds and cute. I said bring me a leopard, not a plush toy. Return it at once.”

      Reply
    40. 40.

      Geminid

      @Baud: The LaSalle nomination is definitely in trouble. Politico has an article up this morning covering the controversy and giving some background:

           Democratic leadership in the state Senate warned the newly-elected governor that, of her seven candidate shortlist for the judgeship, they could not guarantee votes for LaSalle….Hochul nominated him anyway.

      Labor leaders feel that they came through for Hochul last November and believe their interests now are being sacrificed:

           “She promised us a seat at the table,” Jimmy Maloney, the president of a statewide iron worker’s union said at the state Capitol on Monday as labor leaders rallied against the nomination. “She put us on the menu. That’s not right.”

      (Potential) link:

      https://www.politico.com/2023/01/15/hochul-ignored-senate-issues-with-her-chief-judge-pick-now-its-a-problem-for-her-0007709

      Curses, foiled again! The link does not work but the article can be found easily enough.

      Reply
    42. 42.

      Geminid

      @Baud: LaSalle would be the first Puerto Rican-American on New York’s  supreme court. That seems to have been a factor in Hochul’s nomination of him.

      Reply
    43. 43.

      Anne Laurie

      @Geminid: LaSalle would be the first Puerto Rican-American on New York’s supreme court. That seems to have been a factor in Hochul’s nomination of him.

      Hmmm, that *may* have been part of why the ‘union leaders’ took against Judge LaSalle so quickly.  Used to be the Irish / Italian union leaders were deeply suspicious of Puerto Ricans as ‘not actually Americans’ (insert four-letter slur).  These days, I’ve read, it’s African-American union leaders resenting Puerto Ricans (‘taking our jobs’) … with the horseshoe assistance of the rising generation of Dominican-American workers, who think their Puerto Rican predecessors are racist against Spanish-speakers with darker skins.

      The players change, the grudges merely morph!

      Reply
    44. 44.

      Eolirin

      @Geminid: I think LaSalle was the only one of the group that was a former prosecutor too, which can help with pushing back on the weak on crime attacks, where progressives’ preference for a public defender is probably not a great idea, and he’ll probably play well with voters in the Hudson Valley and Long Island or at least better than a black woman would, as frustrating as that is to say. 

      Reply
    45. 45.

      Eolirin

      @Baud: I should have said abortion activists, rather than abortion. There’s no divide in protecting abortion rights broadly, but there’s definitely a divide when it comes to “purity” in what is and isn’t an attack on that right.

      Reply

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