Woodland Park Zoo grieves the loss of its only female Jaguar

Woodland Park Zoo is grieving the loss of Nayla, its only female jaguar.

Staff says the cat was humanely euthanized because of severe mobility issues, linked to her old age.

Jaguars live to about 18 years of age.

Nyla turned 19 last week.

“As a geriatric big cat, Nayla’s welfare and chronic medical conditions, including degenerative joint disease, have been closely managed by her animal caregivers and veterinary staff,” the zoo said in a news release.

This summer Nayla had an episode of neurologic deficits that caused a severe head tilt and loss of balance.

She received treatment and showed signs of improvement for several months.

However, she recently started to show increased weakness in her back legs, causing her to have problems running and jumping.

“Unfortunately, despite changes to her treatment and therapy, she continued to have challenges with her mobility,” said Dr. Misty Garcia, associate veterinarian at Woodland Park Zoo.

As a standard procedure, the zoo’s animal health team will perform a postmortem exam to further diagnose factors that may have contributed to Nayla’s death.

“During nearly two decades of living at Woodland Park Zoo, Nayla portrayed the strength and power of jaguars. She played like a kitten with a variety of enrichment offerings such as rolling in large piles of cat mint or simply napped in her habitat as felines do. We’re going to miss Nayla so much, rest easy our beautiful queen,” said Shannon Sprayberry, an animal keeper at Woodland Park Zoo.