Beloved black jaguar dies after rattlesnake bite at California sanctuary

A beloved black jaguar died after being bitten by a rattlesnake at a big cat sanctuary outside Fresno.

Project Survival Cat Haven in Dunlap said Samba, a 14- or 15-year-old jaguar, was rushed to an emergency veterinary clinic after staff found puncture wounds on her foot, with her left paw and leg swollen.

“She was bit by a rattlesnake and we gave her two vials of antivenom,” the sanctuary’s executive director, Dale Anderson, told the California Post.

While the doses initially appeared to help, Samba ultimately didn’t survive.

“Why didn’t she recover? We don’t know,” Anderson said. 

He called Samba — who was born at the sanctuary — “such a great cat.”

“We hand raised her. She was one of the sweetest jaguar cubs we had,” Anderson explained.

The facility posted heartbreaking pictures of Samba in the emergency room before and after her passing.

Anderson said whenever one of the sanctuary’s cats dies, a necropsy is performed to determine what caused the animal’s death. They are currently awaiting the results.

Samba is the second cat this year to be bitten by a snake at the sanctuary, after only one bite per year over the past half-decade, according to Anderson.

He added that when snakes are caught, they are relocated on sanctuary grounds.

“We’re a conservation facility. I don’t want to just kill snakes because they live there,” Anderson told KMPH.

“We just need to move them to someplace else on the property away from the cats.”

Samba becomes the latest rattlesnake victim in California, following an uptick in snakebites this year.

The latest involved a Los Angeles County woman who was hospitalized after an aggressive rattlesnake bit her and returned to strike her pet cat.

In July, a Santa Clarita Valley resident was bitten on the foot while tending to her rose bushes.

In May, a victim in Oroville required a hospital’s entire supply of anti-venom after being bitten twice by a rattlesnake.

Officials say California is on pace for roughly 20% more rattlesnake bites this year after an unusually warm spring brought the serpents out of hibernation earlier than normal.

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