After four or five days of acclimatization, the five Golden Cats have also gotten used to being watched.
Their genetic instincts are stirring, and while they aren’t as brave as wild Golden Cats, they can muster the courage to bite into any little snacks that dare to enter their enclosure.
Of course, except for that foreign cat.
The dainty snack, that’s how all animals at the rescue station evaluate that delicate Golden Cat.
Even though the domestically captive Golden Cats are quite useless, none are as dainty as that one, getting scared and trembling atop a box just from seeing a mountain mouse.
The other cats around couldn’t stand it, "This thing isn’t even bigger than you, bite it! Why don’t you bite it!"
Biting is out of the question; even if it starves to death, it won’t bite, not even if it jumps off the box!
Oh, why hasn’t its two-legged beast come yet, and why are these dirty things coming its way? o(╥﹏╥)o
Fortunately, the entire enclosure is separated by iron bars. As the mountain mouse strolled along the edge and was about to leave through the bars, a terrifying Demon King descended from the sky. Snap, the mouse’s life was over.
Pang Jin held the plump mountain mouse in its mouth, glanced at the female cat standing on top of the small wooden box, and its disdainful gaze pierced the delicate heart of the little female cat.
Pang Jin strolled halfway around, paused in front of another indifferent female cat, dropped the mountain mouse, and used its paws to push it into the enclosure.
The female cat glanced at it, then at the mountain mouse, and after another glance, jumped down from the wooden post and walked to the front of the bars to sniff it.
In the monitoring room, the keeper of this female cat clenched their fists.
"This Golden Cat was rescued from the wild. At the time, its mother was killed, and a litter of three kittens was sent to our zoo; ultimately, two survived. But when they were two years old, an outbreak of FIP spread through the zoo, affecting several feline cubs, and the other Golden Cat also died from ineffective treatment."
Perhaps due to the trauma of its mother’s death and the loss of its sibling, this female cat developed stereotypic behaviors. Later, the zookeeper and veterinarian of the zoo put a lot of effort into improving her condition.
After all, she’s almost middle-aged now. If she doesn’t have a baby soon, she’ll miss her chance in a couple of years.
After sniffing carefully, the female cat gently bit and then looked up at Pang Jin.
Pang Jin had no other intention towards the female cat; it actually wanted to scare these caged cats on purpose.
But the female cat’s behavior surprised it a bit, so it stayed instead, lying down directly, wagging and flicking its tail as if urging the other to hurry up and eat.
The female cat didn’t hold back; she quickly tore into the mouse’s skin with her sharp teeth and chewed up both the bones and meat.
As she ate, the Golden Cat next door came over, watching eagerly with a suspicious gleam of saliva at its mouth’s edge.
When Pang Jin was feeding the aloof female cat, Big Gold also arrived.
It came with food, targeting the cat sister it had its eye on during the day.
Big Gold has always been very attentive; when flirting with the cat sister, it asked what she liked to eat. But the cat sister is a captive cat, usually eating prepared food, occasionally practicing hunting with a half-grown live chicken.
While catching chickens is a bit challenging for Big Gold, catching rabbits or squirrels is no problem. Its brain thought of rotating the gifts to see what the cat sister likes.
Both female cats were being fed, making the two male cats quite envious.
Chen Ying was also watching the monitor, but they couldn’t let them out yet, they’d have to wait a bit longer.
"Where are the rabbits we bought before? Throw a couple in and see."
The two keepers, having long intended to feed their beloved animals, quickly ran to the storage area’s iron cage, randomly grabbing two rabbits to feed the two male cats.
Over the past few days, Chen Ying has thoroughly understood the situation of the four domestically kept Golden Cats in the zoo. Although they aren’t suitable for wild release, being in a semi-wild environment can effectively stimulate the recovery of some wild instincts.
Even if the two male cats can’t win the favor of the female cats, witnessing how their wild counterparts court and mate means they can replicate the behavior if such opportunities arise in the future.
The biggest issue is that foreign cat; how was it raised to be so... delicate?
Is it still considered a beast? Can it still be called "Young Tiger"?
After contacting the veterinarian from the zoo where it came from, they also sighed, saying the hefty cost of swapping for this Golden Cat was to enrich the domestic captive Golden Cat gene pool. Once it has little cubs, they can only keep one.
"This Golden Cat underwent artificial breeding abroad before. Of the three cubs it gave birth to, only one survived, but it died at six months old. Their zoo felt that the high cub mortality rate was due to the immaturity of artificial breeding technology, so this time, at great expense, they allowed it to come to our country for natural breeding. While they agreed, they also set many stringent conditions."
Chen Ying pondered, "So if it mates with wild Golden Cats and has cubs, how should the finances be calculated?"
After a moment of silence, the veterinarian answered his question with unsure certainty.
"Possibly, probably, maybe we leave two cubs?"
It’s not that their zoo lacks money; if they could afford to exchange for a foreign beauty cat to breed, money can’t be an issue. But what they lack is cats!
To be exact, they lack star animals.
Moreover, leaving two young Golden Cats would be beneficial for future nurturing work, allowing comparisons to yield results.
In the future, when the two cats have grown, they could exchange resources with other domestic zoos, genuinely stepping onto the path of sustainable ex-situ conservation and breeding.