Saturday, January 08, 2000
Zoo's female cheetah dies
BY TANYA ALBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Maya, a 9-year-old female cheetah who graced stages at Riverbend and Music Hall and traveled to Greater Cincinnati classrooms, died in her sleep last month at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens.
Initial indications are that she died from a viral disease called feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). The zoo is waiting for a lab to analyze tissue sample to confirm that was the cause. She died Dec. 23. The average captive life span for a cheetah is 8 to 12 years.
“She came as close to sweet as a wild animal can,” said Cathryn Hilker, a consultant to the Cincinnati Zoo's cat ambassador program who worked with Maya. “She was the most mild mannered cheetah I've ever met.”
The Cincinnati Zoo still has one cheetah, a male named Moya. He will continue the ambassador program by going to schools and making other appearances.
Instead of bringing another female cheetah to the zoo, they will concentrate on bringing more cats into a breeding facility in Loveland, Ms. Hilker said.
Maya, originally from a breeding center in Texas, came to the Cincinnati Zoo when she was 2 years old. She traveled to local schools to teach children about cats, particularly the endangered cheetah. There are about 10,000 to 12,000 cheetahs left in the world, Ms. Hilker said. Maya also made a stage appearance at Riverbend where a baritone serenaded her with the song “Memories,” from Cats.
Proceeds from her appearances benefited the “Angel Fund” for cheetah conservation. Named in memory of Angel, a much-loved zoo cheetah, the fund purchased and maintains a 28,000-acre cheetah conservancy in Namibia and the Mast Farm for captive cheetah breeding in Loveland.
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