PHOTOS: Rare North Chinese Leopard Presented at Zoo Debrecen

Hungary’s first zoo outside the capital has some great and long-awaited news to share with the birth of a North Chinese leopard cub on November 21, 2023, as the first offspring born to Coolio and Jilin since they were introduced to each other in autumn 2022.

The little one has been thriving in the past couple months with increasing visibility and was found out to be a female during her first ever veterinary examination earlier today. Soon to be named with the help of the public on Zoo Debrecen’s Facebook page, the cub weighing 3100 grams can now be spotted in the afternoons as she gets more and more familiar with the winter environment.

Zoo Debrecen has been a safe haven for North Chinese leopards for two decades, with its late breeding pair, Szépfiú (“Pretty Boy”) and Tschunja, having contributed to the growth of the European zoo population four times. Keepers have some wild stories to tell about leopards like how a female dog ended up becoming a wet nurse to the cub born in 2009. Another fun fact is that Coolio was actually fathered by the very first Debrecen-born North Chinese leopard in Ree Park Safari, Denmark, whose granddaughter now marks a continuation of this genetically valuable bloodline.