Shasta Is Back

The University of Houston's new mascot entered his home in the Houston Zoo for the first time Saturday, prowling around the enclosure in front of adoring crowds before climbing up the cliffs to nap in the sun.

The 6-month-old cougar, named Shasta VI, was welcomed to his new home during a party hosted by the UH Alumni Association.

Shasta VI arrived at the zoo in early December after inauspicious beginnings (his mother was killed by a hunter in Washington State), and the UH Alumni Association announced last Wednesday that a partnership with the zoo, conceived almost two years ago and finally fulfilled, marks the continuation of a longstanding tradition.

In anticipation of each game day, a caricature of the opposing team's mascot will be filled with raw meat and thrown into the cougar cage.

Live cougar mascots were a part of UH campus life since 1947, when Alpha Phi Omega purchased Shasta I from a wild animal rancher in Brownsville and student Joe Randol chose the name because according to his entry, "Shasta (She has to). Shasta have a cage, Shasta have a keeper, Shasta have a winning ball club, Shasta have the best."

The line continued through 1989, when Shasta V —who lived in a cage at the corner of the Lynn Eusan Park on the UH campus — met her tragic end from kidney failure, and the tradition was suspended. 

"In this day and age, you can't have a live mascot living on a college campus,"  says UH Alumni Association president Mike Pede. "It's just not going to happen."

Thanks to the collaboration with the Houston Zoo, anyone with Internet access will be able to watch Shasta  24 hours a day, seven days a week, via a webcam that will soon be set up in the cougar's den.

That same webcam will also allow for digital appearances by the live cougar at University of Houston football games and other events. It's perhaps not as immediately striking as a placid Bevo on the sidelines at University of Texas football game, but a video of Shasta VI on the prowl is impressive nonetheless.

The arrival of the new mascot will also bring along new traditions: In anticipation of each game day, a caricature of the opposing team's mascot will be filled with raw meat and thrown into the cougar cage. Shasta VI will also bless the class rings issued to UH students each fall and spring semester on the night before the ceremonies.

"Shasta is a very typical cougar. In the wild, they're extremely shy and very elusive," said Beth Schafer, carnivore curator for the Houston Zoo. "It took him several days until he thought it was safe to leave his room and climb up onto the rocks."

Now, Shasta VI has developed a personality. He plays, runs around on the rocks and he pounces and peers at visitors through the windows of the cage he shares with 4-year-old cougar Haley.