2.3.2021 – Today’s thoughts about Beliza
The day we learned of Beliza’s cancer diagnosis was a difficult day – to be honest, the days were difficult for awhile. Not knowing how long Beliza had left, or how quickly she would decline was not easy information to process. How can we help make her life easier? Do we need to modify her exhibit and holding areas? How quickly do we need to make modifications? If she needs medication, will we be able to get her to take it as needed? We had so many questions, many of which had no immediate answers.
Once the initial shock wore off, keepers quickly got to work and came up with exhibit and holding modification ideas. Lower branches were added to the Day Room and a platform was added to the outdoor exhibit yard to help with limited mobility. Large stumps were added near taller platforms and shelves. A low platform and ramp were added to the holding areas. The intention of these changes was to allow Beliza to get up as high as she physically can once her health declines. Like most cats, Beliza likes being up high, so we wanted to give her the opportunity to do so.
While Beliza’s health hasn’t declined nearly as quickly as we feared, she does take advantage of all the new amenities that were installed just for her. Beliza, being an older cat, does have some arthritis, so using the ramp and stumps should be easier on her joints.
As you all know by now, Beliza is on a medication to help slow the growth of the cancer. She takes the medication very well in ground turkey. She is only offered ground turkey when she is given the medication, so it remains a novel food item and she continues to be eager to consume it.
We do not know how much time Beliza has left, but we will continue to make life as easy and comfortable for her as possible. We are overwhelmed by love and support provided by our community and are forever thankful to be a part of such an amazing animal’s life, day in and day out.
— Keeper Jackie
$125 will support Beliza’s cancer treatment medication for one week. A gift from you today will help us, help her. At Mesker Park Zoo, we ensure that all our animals, like Beliza, receive excellent care every day. Funds in excess to Beliza’s medication will be distributed to our annual Adopt and Animal program that provides animal care and enrichment to all of our animals.
12.2.2020 – Training a Sassy Cat!
Although training is typically done for health reasons, it is also a form of enrichment. Training sessions break up the day to day routine and allow Beliza to use problem solving skills to figure out what she is being asked to do. Much like how she would apply the same problem solving skills were she in the wild.
Training Beliza to allow vet staff to perform medical procedures has always been a priority. Through our years working with her she has allowed us to do some amazing things such as administering vaccinations and sedatives for procedures while lying in the squeeze cage (Pictured Below). In 2019 she allowed us to perform an ultrasound while standing in the squeeze cage, being rewarded with food. I always joke and say “Beliza does not work for free”.
Being able to do these tasks without added stress of more invasive techniques has been very rewarding for both us and Beliza! Depending on the focus of the session, she may be rewarded with part of her diet, or a novel food item. Challenging behaviors may require a favored food, like chicken. However, there are days when even chicken isn’t enough of a reward to entice her to train. If Beliza is not hungry, or does not see a reward, she will simply not cooperate. It’s important to note we do not force Beliza to participate in any training, so if she would rather lay in the sun for the afternoon, that is what she gets to do. Beliza is very good at communicating her thoughts about each training session.
What would cause a jaguar to not want food as a reward? Being overweight is one reason. When Beliza is overweight she is still happy to eat, but does not always think she should have to work for her food. This is when we use novel foods to encourage her to participate in training. Training can be challenging when she is too hungry also. When she is hungry she loses focus on the behaviors and just tries to get the food. These are the reasons why we get monthly weights. Monitoring Beliza’s weight lets us know if we need to change her diet so she can gain/lose the appropriate weight to be healthy.
Some behaviors can be trained by one person (i.e Target), while others require more than one person (i.e injection). Behaviors like injection, ultrasound and getting a weight not only require a second person, but also use the squeeze cage. This is similar to a crate but has doors on both ends and a panel on the side that moves to make the crate smaller or larger. With Beliza, we leave one end open so she can enter and exit at-will during the session. The squeeze cage also has a scale attached to the bottom, making getting weights simple.
As one of Beliza’s Keepers, I find training her to be extremely rewarding. Her attitude makes me laugh. Watching her facial expressions when I reward her too slowly, or ask her for a behavior she is still learning is simply the best. She is full of spunk, sass, and personality.
Knowing that training not only enriches her life, and my day, but also makes giving her medical care easier is the greatest feeling.
– Keeper Jackie
Beliza’s Behaviors
- Get weighed
- Allow someone to give her an injection in her hip (vaccines/medications)
- Ultrasound; this is helpful when she was put with the male for breeding to determine if she was pregnant.
- Touch, also known as target; this moves her around to check her body condition and movement.
- Sit; this allows for a different view of her body and to ask for other behaviors.
- Down; this allows for another body view and movement.
- Up; this allows for an under body view, movement and to check her paws.
- Paw; this allows us to look at her paw pads.
- Open mouth; this allows us to view her teeth and gums.
$125 will support Beliza’s cancer treatment medication for one week. A gift from you today will help us, help her. At Mesker Park Zoo, we ensure that all our animals, like Beliza, receive excellent care every day. Funds in excess to Beliza’s medication will be distributed to our annual Adopt and Animal program that provides animal care and enrichment to all of our animals.
11.4.2020
As Beliza continues her cancer treatment, one of the things we’re watching closely is her weight. Sounds easy, right? But… it’s a bit more complicated than when you step on the scale at home.
Animals with cancer are prone to weight loss for lots of reasons, often because they’re less hungry than usual. This hasn’t been the case with Beliza at all! When she was originally diagnosed, we increased her diet to try and postpone the wasting syndrome that happens with a lot of cancer patients. This was so effective that we recently had to cut back because she has gotten a little chunkier than we’d like! Her ideal weight range is about 100 to 105 lbs., and at one point before her recent diet she reached 121 lbs.! Because she has some arthritis in one of her elbows, it’s important we not let her get too heavy because it would put more pressure on that joint and potentially cause her pain.
Zookeepers have worked toward being able to weigh Beliza and Cuxtal ever since they moved into Amazonia. At least once a month, each cat steps onto a scale that’s built into the floor of the chute they use to travel from one stall to the other in their indoor space. This process has become so routine that it’s easy to take for granted, but getting there took trust-building with the cats, and convincing them to hold still once they’re standing on the scale which isn’t always so easy!
As keeper Jackie said in her earlier post, “you can’t make Beliza do anything she doesn’t want to”, so this behavior is 100% voluntary. It is a two-person job, where one keeper asks the cat to step onto the scale to receive a food reward, and another person reads the scale’s display (which is in the keeper area where the cats can’t reach it). An upcoming blog post will explain more about behavioral training and other ways we use it to improve the level of care we can provide these amazing cats.
In between weighing sessions, keepers are watching Beliza’s appetite closely, and monitoring her body condition score (BCS), which is a way to watch what the body looks like on the outside to know if an animal is too thin, too fat, or just right. These BCS scales exist for pet cats and dogs, and it’s a great way to know whether your animals at home are getting too much to eat (Hint: they probably are!). 😊 A BCS scale has even been adapted for big cats and this is one tool we use to know whether our felines at the zoo are being offered the right amount of food.
The fact that Beliza is maintaining weight is a great sign, and is one of the many ways we know that she is winning her battle against cancer so far. Thank you all for your positive thoughts as we continue this journey!
— Dr. Carrie Ullmer
$125 will support Beliza’s cancer treatment medication for one week. A gift from you today will help us, help her. At Mesker Park Zoo, we ensure that all our animals, like Beliza, receive excellent care every day. Funds in excess to Beliza’s medication will be distributed to our annual Adopt and Animal program that provides animal care and enrichment to all of our animals.
If you feel so moved, use the link below to help us offset the cost of cancer treatment for this amazing cat:
10.22.2020 – The Role of the Jaguar
Thank you so much for your ongoing well-wishes for Beliza as she undergoes cancer treatment. She continues to thrive, and the community’s generous support toward her care has been heart-warming. Today we thought we’d share more about her role in the bigger picture. Animals like Beliza are amazing creatures, and the connections they help our visitors forge with the natural world are essential to our mission here at Mesker Park Zoo and Botanic Garden. When Amazonia opened in 2008, we decided that donations made by guests in that area of the zoo would be passed on to conservation projects benefitting South American species, and we’d like to highlight a couple of those projects.
Panthera is one of the conservation organizations we’ve donated to over the years. Their work is focused on researching and helping populations of wild felids around the world, from sand cats in the Moroccan Sahara to tigers in Thailand. Recently, they have been helping to fight fires in the Brazilian Pantanal, a prime area of jaguar habitat, and their Jaguar Corridor Initiative seeks to preserve habitat along the jaguar’s home range from Mexico all the way down to Argentina, in order to promote genetic diversity in the species. We have also sent funds to the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, which is a preserved area of native jaguar habitat in Belize. With support from Mesker Park and other zoological institutions, they have been able to hire rangers to help keep jaguars safe from poachers.
The common goal of these conservation organizations is to combat the biggest threats to jaguars in their native habitat, including human conflict (like poaching) and habitat loss due to deforestation. These beautiful cats have lost 40% of their historic home range, which at one time included the southwestern Unites States! The beauty of donating to these projects is that although they’re targeting a large charismatic cat like the jaguar, entire ecosystems reap the benefits. These include thousands of plant and animal species, including many of those you may have seen during a visit to Amazonia: Forest of Riches. Some of these may not garner much public sympathy and support on their own, but benefit from jaguar habitat conservation. Likewise, when we donate funds to projects designed to help blue-throated macaws, Panamanian golden frogs, or tapirs, as we have in recent years, we can help jaguars indirectly as well. During this pandemic, it’s sometimes hard to think about the threats facing the natural world because of all the stress in our day-to-day lives. But even if you don’t feel like you can contribute financially toward these efforts, small changes in your life here at home can help native wildlife around the world. Skip the straw, recycle everything you can, eat sustainably-harvested seafood, and try to reduce your carbon footprint to help fight the climate change that is contributing to things like forest fires in Brazil – it’s a beautiful time of year to bike or walk to work! Together we can make a difference and help combat further declines in populations of jaguars, and honor amazing ambassadors like Beliza who help us appreciate the wonder of these species.
— Dr. Carrie Ullmer
9.14.2020 – A Brief Beliza History!
We’re excited to share that last week was the one year anniversary of when Beliza the jaguar started her cancer treatment. We thought we’d use this occasion to share a little about Beliza’s history, for those of you who may not know much about her.
Beliza was born at Stone Zoo in Massachusetts and came to Mesker Park when she was a little under a year old. She arrived in 2007 in anticipation of the opening of Amazonia: Forest of Riches. It’s hard to believe that was 13 years ago!
On September 22, 2009, she gave birth to two female cubs, Maya and Rosa, after she and Cuxtal received a breeding recommendation from the Jaguar Species Survival Plan. The cubs were a big hit with our guests, and you can see why – they were adorable and brought a lot of activity to the jaguar habitat with their playfulness. But just like in the wild, jaguars under human care are solitary cats, so the cubs moved to other zoos in 2011. Maya went on to have cubs of her own, so Beliza is actually a grandma!
We temporarily introduced Beliza and Cuxtal several times in 2018 and 2019 in hopes of her having more cubs. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and when we examined her under anesthesia we found that cancer was causing her fertility issues. Despite this diagnosis, she continues to do well, even a year after starting treatment. Please join us in celebrating Beliza’s success so far and wishing her ongoing good health!
$125 will support Beliza’s cancer treatment medication for one week. A gift from you today will help us, help her. At Mesker Park Zoo, we ensure that all our animals, like Beliza, receive excellent care every day. Funds in excess to Beliza’s medication will be distributed to our annual Adopt and Animal program that provides animal care and enrichment to all of our animals.
If you feel so moved, use the link below to help us offset the cost of cancer treatment for this amazing cat:
8.20.2020 – Working with/for Beliza: Keeper Jackie
“Working with Beliza (AKA: Beezee, Beezee J, Beliza Sunshine, Princess B) for the past 7 years has been very rewarding. Beliza’s playful, sassy personality has made me smile & laugh countless times. Her stubbornness has frustrated me at times. The news of her cancer brought many tears to my eyes. It has been an interesting 7 years that has given me many memories and stories to share.
First rule when working with Beliza: she is in charge. Second rule: Beliza does not work for free. By “work”, I mean “shift”. Shifting is the term we use to describe asking the animal to move through a door from one space to another. Every now and then Beliza will surprise me and shift without food. Most of the time, Beliza will not shift unless she given the proper amount of food. How much is the right amount? Only Beliza knows. I have no idea how she decides, but it could be 3 meatballs one day and 7 the next. It could be a fish or she may require meat to go with her fish. She will lay with her front legs crossed while watching the meatballs fall until she sees what she likes, then she’ll shift. Beliza is in charge.
I’ll never forget the day Beliza scared me. First thing in the morning, I went to verify she was on exhibit, alive and well. Usually when I call her name she will look towards me or even come over to me. This one morning, she did not move. She did not blink. I tried to confirm she was breathing by looking for the rise and fall of her abdomen. Nothing! I could not see any movement anywhere on her body. My heart sank. Why wasn’t she responding? Stroke? Seizure? How are we going to get her help in the middle of the exhibit? I kept calling to her hoping to see movement. I turned my back to her for a second. She ran up to the mesh and jumped at hit! She was playing! I had never seen Beliza do something like that before. The biggest wave of relief came over me. I told her it was not nice to scare me like that. Apparently Beliza thought it was a fun game because she tried the same thing several times after that day. Beliza is a prankster.
Another day I’ll never forget is the day of the skunk. I was told to go to the jaguar exhibit because Beliza had tangled with a skunk. I wasn’t even at Amazonia yet. When I entered the back of Amazonia it was very clear, by the smell that she had tangled with a skunk. The closer I got to the exhibit, the stronger the stench. In order to clean the exhibit without getting sick and trying to minimize the amount of smell that seeped into my pores, I wore a full Tyvek suit with hood, 2 pair of gloves and an N95 mask. I have no idea how Beliza was able to deal the smell, but she seemed fine. It took a couple of weeks for the smell to leave the Day Room and Beliza’s body. To this day, she still has 2 small scars on her face from her encounter with the skunk. Beliza is fearless.”
$125 will support Beliza’s cancer treatment medication for one week. A gift from you today will help us, help her. At Mesker Park Zoo, we ensure that all our animals, like Beliza, receive excellent care every day. Funds in excess to Beliza’s medication will be distributed to our annual Adopt and Animal program that provides animal care and enrichment to all of our animals.
If you feel so moved, use the link below to help us offset the cost of cancer treatment for this amazing cat:
08.10.2020 – Getting up to speed
Hi everyone! We thought we’d take this chance to give you a little insider information about one of the more interesting vet cases we have at the zoo right now. Beliza is our 14 year-old female jaguar, and since she’s been living at the zoo since February 2007, she’s pretty much a fan favorite. So you can imagine how saddened we all were when she was diagnosed with cancer last year.
We found out that Beliza had this disease because she didn’t get pregnant after being introduced to our male, Cuxtal, on two separate occasions. Since they’ve had cubs before (more about that in a later post), this was concerning. When we examined her to look for a cause, we found a large tumor, so we had to spay Beliza in July 2019. While we were doing that procedure, we noticed she had a lot of tiny cysts throughout her abdomen. We sent some of these off for biopsy, and confirmed that they were cancerous.
Since most pet cats get spayed at a young age, this isn’t a type of cancer that has been studied very much. And definitely not in jaguars! A veterinary oncologist with MedVet in Cincinnati advised us on several treatment options we could try. For about a year now, Beliza has been receiving oral medication three times a week to try to keep the cancer at bay, and we’re thrilled to report that she is doing great! This experimental treatment seems to be working so far – during her last exam, we were able to see that her tumors haven’t grown any further. When she was diagnosed I said, “I’ll be surprised if she makes it a year after surgery”, and I have never been so happy to be wrong in my life!
I think we all know someone (person or animal) in our lives that has been through a battle with cancer. In Beliza’s case, although we know we can’t cure this problem (there are too many tiny tumors to remove them all surgically), we can try to make the time she has left the best it possibly can be. We want to include you all in her journey so that you can learn more about her personality and spunk, how we take care of the medical needs of animals at the zoo, and so that as many people as possible can be rooting for her as she continues her fight. Stayed tuned over the coming weeks as we tell you more about Beliza and the role she’s played as an ambassador for her species over the years.
