The moment she saw her keeper, Canyon, a 2-year-old mountain lion, ran over and pressed the back of her head against the wire wall of her cage. Canyon, left, and Cascade are two mountain lions flourishing at Moonridge Animal Park in Big Bear Lake. They were orphaned as newborns and brought to Moonridge to be nursed and nurtured to adulthood. As lead animal keeper Debbie Richardson scratched Canyon's neck, the cougar chirped like a small bird."You hear that sound?" Richardson asked. "That's a sound she makes when she's around her siblings. She thinks I'm her mother. She doesn't know she's a mountain lion." That goes for her twin sisters, Cascade and Peg, as well. All three have been hand-raised by humans at the Moonridge Animal Park in Big Bear Lake since they were orphaned. And, as they purred and chirped, they seem to be doing quite well.

These animals are the latest success stories among 150 injured or orphaned critters taken in by the tiny zoo near the Bear Mountain ski resort on the south side of Big Bear Lake. The zoo itself is an endangered species: its lease expires in five years and it has to move. Zoo officials are clinging to the hope they will eventually be able to move onto 25 acres of U.S. Forest Service land next to the Big Bear Discovery Center in Fawnskin on the north side of the lake. But bureaucracy and a disagreement over the size of the rent check leave both sides in some doubt.

The three mountain lions cavort in a nearby enclosure."They're just too sweet for words," keeper Patricia Rivera said. "When we go in with them, they interact with us as though they were still babies. But they are getting to be full grown and we have to watch their body language and their behavior. A lot of times they want to jump up on us and play. If you're not careful, they can knock you right down." She said crowds gather when she goes into the enclosure and they go away disappointed. "They want to see me attacked by a mountain lion," she said. "It surprises them when it doesn't happen."

The mountain lions came to the zoo two years ago after their mother was shot and killed on a goat ranch north of Sacramento. "They only found out she was nursing babies after they had shot her. Luckily, they went looking for the babies and found three two-week-old baby mountain lions in a den. Their eyes were still closed." The kittens were treated for intestinal problems and brought to Moonridge.