A very important visit post for everyone to see!
Well it has been over six years since I last visited Woburn Safari Park, so I thought that with a gap between my surgery and starting work I would visit a few zoos and Woburn was on my list. For those of you who read the blog well, you will all know that the lions resident at Linton Zoo descend from Woburn Safari Park, and that the elder pair at Linton Zoo Riziki and Karla were born here. So I wanted to have a really good look at the lion pride to see how it has changed since I first visited. Woburn really is the place where my love for lions started to grow, so it does have a lot of memories for me.
The pictures from my first visit in 2002 can be seen here in this post. So what can I report on being different? For a start there is a brand new lion house and paddock, the old house and shelter have been demolished to make way for this house which is right at the exit of the reserve. The house itself seems very useable, with different areas that can be seperated or opened as a large communal unit, each area has a door that can access the paddock, this in itself is a reasonable size, with a hill, and a few logs, the fencing however is electric and very heavy duty, making it rather unsightly.
As you can see from the photos I took as many as I possibly could, the enclosure itself is of 32 acres, larger than some zoos altogether. However today the lions were kept right at the far side, and were being kept in order by a landrover making sure that they didn't stray too far. In my opinion I feel that the lions should be able to stray as far as they want too, and I am aware that they do have to be watched, but that should be the whole point of having such a large enclosure, otherwise it just makes the rest of the reserve a bit redundant.
So I kept on driving till I came to view the far side where I could see the pride of lions wandering around. It was fantastic to see them again. The three castrated males were easily different in appearance to the females. All three of them were huge and incredibly butch, their faces were of a much more oval shape, and they were very 'puffy' around their fur and their belly and neck. They really do like odd, a mane definately would complete them!
However their lack of a certain area doesn't obviously match up with their head, as one of the males was mounting one of the females quite a few times, maybe nothing can get rid of the male instinct, especially that in lions!
The male below was easily distinguished because of the huge black patches around his eyes, I am not sure of the cause of this, perhaps it is just a lot of wear and tear? He certainly did look like he had been through the wars a bit.
The pride itself now numbers only 8 individuals, with a few dying and a few being dispersed off to other zoos because of fighting within the pride, perhaps he was one of the lions picked on. The group itself did seem to get on very well and were very playful in some parts of the morning. So the pride itself seems to be a lot more stable than it used to be, which is what it needs to be before a new male is introduced. The pictures below are what you have come here to see, so I will leave you to look at them! More information will follow in the next posts were you will be able to see more pictures from today's visit.
The group itself all made up of siblings and cousins, does use the enrichment devices thought up by keepers very well, and as you can see the little female even climbed up one of the huge trees in the reserve which was fantastic to see. And you can even see some of the males having a go on the hanging rope structure hung from a tree.
Well these were all of the photos I took on my first circuit round the Safari Park, and there are two more sets of pictures to come! Here are my pictures from my two afternoon circuits around the Safari Park.
Cheers
James
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