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.
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