Hopes for Anna and Beau at San Diego Zoo

Anna has been resident at San Diego Zoo for some time and was previously paired with snow leopard Evert, but she didn't have cubs.

Breeding snow leopards in Zoos can be hard work. Todd Speis, senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo shares the story of trying to breed Anna, a resident snow leopard at the Zoo and a new male cat Beau. “Initially, we tried an introduction just prior to breeding season. Neither cat took much of a liking to the other, which was not surprising. In the wild, these cats live highly solitary lives and only come together for short periods during breeding season.”

Anna had previously been mated with another cat, Evert but had a series of pseudopregnancies which didn’t result in cubs. You can read the story by Barbara Durrant,  the Henshaw Director of Reproductive Physiology at the San Diego Zoo. She shares in detail the problems of getting cats to the stage of mating and the medical issues with Anna. Sometimes these things don’t come naturally and  Zoo staff have to do a huge amount of research and work to get cubs.

Beauregarde, also known as Beau, the San Diego Zoo male snow leopard keepers are trying to breed.