We are afraid we have some sad news to announce. Last week, Qara, our female Pallas cat passed away. She had arrived at the Sanctuary from Czechia in 2019 at the age of 2 and had been with us ever since. She was quite the opposite of our previous female, Tula, who was a very calm and considered cat, while Qara was all energy.
Qara had always been an enormous personality at the Sanctuary. She certainly gave her breeding partner Jethro a run for his money and always managed to keep the keepers on their toes as well.
In the winter, ‘find the Pallas cats’ was the name of the game on morning and evening cat checks. Jethro was usually lounging in his bed, however Qara had an array of spots where she knew she could hide to make the keepers’ lives more difficult. This was often the same for guests. She had perfected balancing on one of her raised beams behind some ivy, where she could spy on everyone without being seen. If watching her on the CCTV however, she could be seen hunting flies in her den or coming out onto the platforms, on full show even though nobody was around to see her, just watching the goings on around the Sanctuary.
In the Summer however, Qara was bursting with energy and confidence. She was a greedy little thing and would dart around the keeper who was bringing her food, patience was definitely not her strong point. This energy was also seen when mixed with Jethro. She would scurry up to him to catch his eye, then dart away again, always stopping to look behind her to see if he was following. He always was! If she had got out of bed on the wrong side however and he had had the audacity to be the one to approach her, well he would soon be told that she didn’t approve.
On photo days Qara would be an absolute super star, pattering around the rocks in her enclosure trying to find each and every piece of meat that was thrown for her. She was also an enormous hit with the lodge guests on their morning and evening tours, and during the colder season’s or in more recent years when Jethro was at his most unsociable, she would always be the one to show up and represent their species to the guests.
Not only did Qara capture the hearts of guests in person but also online. Pallas’ cats in general are incredibly popular online due to their grumpy-looking faces and their big attitudes, and in our ‘World Cup of Cats’ on YouTube, Jethro just missed out on first place, just beaten to our number one spot by our gorgeous Qara. Attitude she certainly did have but I must admit the face really wasn’t a grumpy Pallas’ cat face but beautiful and bright face with big round eyes.
On Wednesday we took Qara to our local veterinary clinic as she was noticed in the morning to not be her usual bubbly self and had not eaten her dinner from the night before. It was found through blood tests that her kidneys were failing and despite us giving lots of fluids to help support them we were unable to recover them, and she sadly passed away. Qara had been receiving medication for her kidneys for a number of years and we are still awaiting histology results from further ongoing investigation.
Please keep your thoughts with all the keepers and the rest of the team at the Sanctuary.