Rizi & Karla - 27th May

So here are a few photos from my visit this afternoon, Riziki was resting in the long grass under the tree in the shade, while Karla was sat on the far side by the fence, obviously very hot!

Even in the baking sun, Riziki still manages to look absolutely superb, a very regal looking lion indeed! And as you can see below their enclosure really does blossom in the Summer, with all the trees in leaf, and the long grass and vegetation, it really does look very nice. Once again proof that a very simple design can work incredibly well.

Zuri & Safi - 27th May

Here are my most up to date photos of Zuri and Safi, taken this afternoon (Sunday 27th May!). As you can probably tell it was a very hot day, and they spent the majority just sat asleep, which I don't blame them for! Later on however they came and joined me where I was sat in the shade and fell asleep there. 

Below are a few pictures of Safi when she came over to say hello, as she started from a reasonable distance away I was able to use my cameras to take some good photos of her, and I managed to catch her with her tongue out, twice!

So I hope you enjoyed these photos, for me it was great to see the lions for a couple of hours, having been rather busy these last few weeks, I am pretty sure by the amount of yawning that was going on as you can see, that these lions will be sleeping a lot tonight!

Louisa

Louisa was born at Linton Zoo to Zuri and Safina on the 16th May 2010. Below are the last photos that I took of her when she was about eight months old, before she and her two brothers Masai and Zulu were sent to Noahs Ark Zoo Farm.

Below this a photo taken from the link below, showing Louisa at Noahs Ark Zoo Farm.

However a year after their move, Louisa was once moved again to Longleat Safari Park to start a brand new lion pride. Joining two males Henry and Hugo from Knowsley Safari Park and a pair of elder lionesses she is to become a founder female for a new pride at the Park. This is not the first time in it's forty year history that Linton lions have gone to Longleat Safari Park to join the prides that the Safari Park is so famous for.

In a recent press release by Longleat on their facebook, showing the lions in bluebells it was when I realised that one of the lionesses pictures could be Louisa, as these pictures are definately in the right reserve housing the pride that she is in. Pictures are also on this website, and the pictures below are from this website and do not belong to me.

Here is a photo of Louisa's new suitors Henry and Hugo who arrived from Knowsley Safari Park last year. Both fantastic looking individuals with extensive long manes, the father of these two Kenya, was he himself born at Longleat in the pride next door, so like most lions in the UK these two descend from the lions of Longleat.

This Lioness eating the sign is obviously a young lioness, her spots have not yet fully faded and she still has a bit of a fluffy coat, this is why I think it is Louisa. Sadly I have not been able to find close up photos to let me look at the spots on her cheeks and match them up to the photos of her as a cub, which would make much more reliable evidence. If the lioness in the photo is Louisa she is in absolutely fantastic shape, and in obviously good health.

Here is a photo of the lionesses of Henry and Hugo's pride. It turns out that Louisa is the female on the far right. She has got a very bold face, and it is long like Zuri's but has a fixed stance a lot like Safina's. Superb to see her fully grown.

So here we go, lion prides are always ever changing, and here is the beginning of a new one, and Linton lions are at the core, I hope Longleat the very best of success with their lion prides, and they always do a superb job in managing them, lets hope cubs arrive soon!

Enrichment for lions

Slight change to the usual posts here, but I thought this would interest people. As i'm sure you all know zoos try to excite the lives of their animals in different ways, through hiding food, toys, even to just giving them hills in their enclosures, this is all known as enrichment.

Whilst volunteering at Linton Zoo, I have taken part in some of the enrichment that they do with the lions and here I some of the ways that they do it...

Cardboard is a very simple and incredibly cheap way to provide something for big cats to do, easily torn up and not dangerous in anyway towards them. Here I am laying down a tube of cardboard for the lions in their enclosure.

These may seem completely unnatural but they help stimulate wild behavior, chasing these plastic balls around echoes that of chasing prey, and helps the lions burn some calories! 

In the mounds, zebra dung is quite often placed, this gives the lions new smells to deal with, and they will quite often roll around in it, once again this is something entirely new for the lions to get their heads around.

Above is Safi playing with her new cardboard toy, which did not last very long at all! And below is Zuri on top of his hill, standing right next to where the zebra dung was placed, this is a favourite location for the pair to sit.

So here is just one example of what different zoos do to keep their big cats occupied, and there are plenty of other methods going around. Many include perfumes, big cats have a fantastic sense of smell and by rubbing things like perfumes, cat nip and so on, on logs, it can provide hours of amusement for even the biggest of cats. Many zoos hide the meat for their cats and even put them up poles for the cats to either jump or climb to get their food, thus making their muscles stronger.

I hope you all enjoy this post!

New blood for the Lions of Longleat

Having waited for quite some time to post anything on this issue, I feel that it is time to post everything I have about Longleat's new male lion Nibalo.

Nibalo arrived at Longleat in October 2010 from a German Zoo. This was the first move of importing fresh lions into a Safari from a different country for decades at least. With most zoos resorting to swapping males, There has been a very fluent line of swapping male lions between the main four Safari Parks Woburn, Longleat, Knowsley and West Midlands since they originated. But with the loss of Kabir, to Newquay Zoo in 2008 where he died, and his two sons Wallace going to Blackpool Zoo the following year and Dudley moving to Blair Drummond shortly afterwards, there was a gap for Pride Male of the second lion pride. Due to Nibalos appearance I would say that he is certainly not a really young male and I would guess that he is around six to eight years old, however I am hoping to confirm this at some point. One thing for sure is that he is certainly a fantastic specimen and is in very good shape.

The photo above was taken from the Daily mail article shown below. The photo shows Nibalo and one of the cubs that he has sired at Longleat Safari Park. The photo below shows Nibalo and was taken from this flickr site and does not belong to me.

Cubs have not only been born to older lioness Yendi, but also to younger lioness Maliaka, with cubs born from both generations of females it frees up the genetics of the pride, with not all cubs being born from exactly the same lines of lionesses with the same male. With Yendi being mated with two seperate males Kabir and Nibalo, the genetics of her cubs are slightly different. All male cubs born at the Park have become pride males of other collections and that will happen with the males born last year too. With the 'new' German blood that they have been passed from Nibalo, it will free up the British gene pool which is rather condensed from years and years of breeding with the same blood lines for nearly 40 years. With the arrival of Nibalo and also the arrival of Kasanga from Woburn, there is still a future for British Lions.

However also keeping up the tradition of male swapping, two males from Knowsley, Henry and Hugo have arrived as new pride males for the first pride. For years this pride was ruled by Charlie, who moved to Longleat in 2009 and died earlier this year. So the pride of old lionesses and a few new females such as Lousia from Noahs Ark, one of the trio born at Linton Zoo in 2009 has been intergrated in to form a new breeding line in this Pride.

As always the media are always fond of new cubs at any zoo, so the BBC had their own report. Longleat also had their own press release on their website and the Daily Mail also followed it up in the newspaper.

With these fresh new imports of male lions, it seems like the Safari Parks of Britain will always be, atleast the breeding pumps of the African Lion breeding programme within the UK, with most of the zoo individuals being descended from Safari Park stock, it is a never ending cycle, as every generation overcomes the next.

Dartmoor Lions - 2007

Since the fame brought to the Park through the making of 'We Bought a Zoo' which has now been in and out of Cinemas I thought it would be a good idea, to post photos and information about the lions held at Dartmoor Zoological Park.

Here are my photos from my visit in 2007, shortly after the zoo reopened after it's takeover by the Mee family.

Apologies for the quality of these photos but they were taken on my old camera.

Since the takeover new signs had been erected and are shown below, these show vital information on the three lions that they held at the time, Emma (who has since died) Josie and Soloman, whose name will be recognised from the film!

Just before the takeover however there was another lioness called Peggy. Peggy was Emma's daughter and Josies mother. Peggy came with Emma from Dudley Zoo where she was born. And came to the zoo to become a breeding partner for male Soloman. However as Ellis Daw, previous owner writes in his book "From the Lamb to the Tiger" Dudley Zoo insisted that if he wanted Peggy to breed, then Emma had to come with her, Emma was known for her particular temper and was known as 'Evil Emma'. No wonder Dudley wanted her to go with Peggy!

I hope you enjoy,

James