Every time a wildlife sanctuary or park posts a video of their wildcats at play, we are reminded of how similar they are to our domestic cats at home. From playing with their handlers to sitting in boxes and trying out catnip, they are every bit as delightfully unhinged.
Whether they are tigers, mountain lions or leopards, they playfully hunt during enrichment time, mimicking their natural instincts, just as domestic cats do. They just have larger, sharper claws. One wildlife park’s snow leopard gives fans a taste of her playtime routine as she gets a bit of the zoomies while playing with a rather large pumpkin in her enclosure. The outcome is absolutely hilarious.
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Snow Leopard Bats Around Pumpkin Like a Soccer Ball
Juno, the snow leopard, has the time of her life playing with pumpkins inside her enclosure at the Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard, Kan. Even though Halloween is over, there are plenty of these large gourds lying around waiting for a new place to call home.
One, it made its way into Juno’s enclosure, where she showed her adoring public exactly what she thought of it in true kitty cat style. The pumpkin was pounced, flipped, tossed and rolled all over the place. While she appears to be in a love-hate relationship with the seasonal fruit, she also seems to be having quite a bit of fun stalking and rolling around with it, even though she did seem rather suspicious of it between pounces.
Honestly, her play pattern is quite reminiscent of my own cat when she gets on a roll with one of her favorite toys, minus the murder mitts, of course. Yet another amazingly adorable demonstration of how cats are cats, no matter their size.
Related: Wildcat Has all Too Familiar Reaction to Catnip, and We’re in Stitches
What Commenters Think of the Cat’s Antics
Netizens took to the comments to fawn over Juno and her adorable cat-like behavior. Many comment that they love how there is very little difference between the behavior of big cats and domestic cats. One even says that they are the same program, with different hardware.
Granted, a big cat’s hardware could seriously injure you if you become too tempted to cuddle. If you attempt to cuddle a domestic cat against their will, you’ll end up with a few scratches. It may go against self-preservation and logic, but a large number of commenters were willing to take the risk.
Another commenter writes, “This is so insanely adorable but also crazy impressive cause how is she rolling it around like it weighs nothing.” It is impressive how easily Juno flips and rolls the large pumpkin like a housecat plays with a ball.
Some commenters attribute her skills to being a snow leopard, since they do seem to be more agile than the other large cats. “The way they use their tails, you can see it here, is so crazy different to house cats and other big cats. My brain struggles to rationalize it. But it’s amazing.”
The snow leopard’s expert tail use is likely a result of its need to navigate the snowy mountains of Central and South Asia, where the species originated. There, the large cat’s tail helps maintain their balance. It’s also an astounding 40 inches long, so it serves as a blanket when mountain temperatures drop, especially for their faces when the barometer hits its lowest point around -40°F in the middle of winter. That pumpkin has nothing on its original habitat.
This story was originally reported by Parade Pets on Nov 5, 2025, where it first appeared in the Pet News section. Add Parade Pets as a Preferred Source by clicking here.