It is with a heavy heart that we share the news that Yazhi, our beloved puma, passed away on Tuesday 18th March.
Yazhi was a truly special cat to all of us at the Sanctuary and the team at Hertfordshire Zoo. At only a few months old Yazhi was taken in by Hertfordshire Zoo, and hand-reared by her loving keepers who named her after the native American word for ‘little one’. At 18 months, this affectionate and playful puma joined us here at the Sanctuary, quickly settling in and forging bonds with her larger neighbours, Viktoria and Valentina.
Yazhi continued to be a particularly playful character all through her life, becoming famous around the sanctuary for her love of football, which she would play with basketballs; her absolute favourite! The team would occasionally give Yazhi a basketball as a treat, and it was always a joy to watch her tear around her enclosure, chasing after them with boundless energy. She even tried to replicate the same fun with pumpkins at Halloween, though they didn’t quite bounce the same way!
Yazhi had very close relationships with the people she knew well. Always sweet natured, she would come over to those she loved and if you listened carefully, you could hear her beautiful, continuous soft purr. Yazhi would chat lovingly back, engaging in a little conversation. Her wonderful personality was matched equally by her outstanding beauty and, to many of us, she was perfect in every way. When the keepers were working around her enclosure, Yazhi would often be caught lying leopard-like on one of the beams. Keeping an eye on what the keepers were doing, Yazhi's back legs would hang down off the beams whilst maintaining an excitable and mischievous look in her eye.
At Christmas, Yazhi was always in for a treat as some of our regular supporters would donate a Christmas turkey to each of the pumas. This meal, enormous for Yazhi (but Christmas is for over-indulgence!), would be presented in a fun and enriching way, which she tackled with the excitement and gusto that Yazhi put into everything.
Sadly, Yazhi's health began to decline very recently. She stopped eating, and after a period of monitoring, our vet confirmed that her kidneys had failed. Despite treatment, it was determined that Yazhi's condition couldn’t be reversed, and after careful consideration, we made the difficult decision with our vet to let her go peacefully.
Everyone at the Sanctuary still saw Yazhi as the baby cub that arrived to us and given that her illness progressed over a short time, this has come as a shock to many of us. But we will always remember her as the sweet, playful and affectionate character that she was, as well as a huge part of our family.