The Big Cat Sanctuary is sad to announce that Athena, our incredible black jaguar, has passed away.
Athena came to The Big Cat Sanctuary in 2011 after having lived for 6 years at Paradise Wildlife Park with partner Ares. Athena’s reputation certainly preceded her. For years we had heard the stories of the sneaky female jaguar at Paradise who never passed up an opportunity to outsmart keepers, finding places to hide in the dens, or pretending something was wrong to try and lure keepers towards her. To be honest, it was a little intimidating to know we would be receiving this notorious trickster and famous hustler. Walking on eggshells we wondered what the next heist would be. Thankfully, at the age of 8, perhaps Athena had reached a new level of maturity and she was generally, very well-behaved. Or so we chose to believe. There would be times that we would have strange encounters with Athena, seemingly trying to grab a keeper’s keys hanging from their belt, or when being asked to come over to take her supplements she would refuse to take them in an area where the keeper was protected from Athena’s reach, waiting patiently to lure the keeper to an area where she could reach through. Thankfully keepers are too experienced to fall for her tricks but would often leave her enclosure thinking ‘I wonder if she did that on purpose’. Well, let me tell you, if anyone would, Athena would.
The best word I’ve ever heard to describe Athena was ‘formidable’. It encapsulates so perfectly to me this stunning jaguar, black as the night, with an incredible fixed amber stare that would put the hair on the back of your neck on end. Especially when looking through the window into her dark den, guests would often be told ‘She’s there on the table, look for two amber eyes staring at you’ which would be followed by gasps, a mixture of excitement and unease. With almost every other cat, you get to see all sides of their personality. There is always a serious side, a calm and gentle side, there’s a grumpy side and always a silly, goofy side. Unless you’re Athena! Always on point, watching, listening, making sure that people couldn’t see her until the very last minute. She would, quite literally, hide in the shadows or around corners, wanting to be the only one who knew exactly what was going on.
But apparently, this intense exterior was a bit of a front. As Athena grew older, she began to show us the softer sides of herself. She would allow people to see her more easily, relaxed on the top of a platform or wandering around in the grass. She even got caught playing with her jingle-ball enrichment, the sound of the bells giving the game away and drawing our attention to a finally goofy old jag playing in the sun. Young Athena would never have allowed this to happen.
She began taking part in training sessions with keeper Emily, even allowing our keeper Michael to take blood from her tail voluntarily. Because of these blood donations, we were able to monitor Athena carefully. At the grand old age of twenty, there wasn’t too much surprise when we discovered her kidney values were extremely high. We put her on medication to help support her kidneys and decided to be led by Athena’s behaviour. For as long as she showed that she was still enjoying herself, we would ignore the blood results and she would let us know when the time was right. We knew what symptoms to look for, and over this past week, we saw them. Athena started refusing food, began to look tired and became unbalanced. We knew the day that we hoped would never come had finally come.
Our gorgeous Athena, a powerhouse of a jaguar, couldn’t ever be replaced. But she will forever be remembered and will be talked about for many years to come. We will miss you, Athena.