I have wanted to visit Paradise Wildlife Park again for some time now, but when I heard about the death of Mana earlier this Summer, talked about in this post. It made me more conscious to get there quickly to see how Turkana was doing.
Unfortunately my camera battery died almost minutes in to my visit, however with my new fancy blackberry phone I took many photos on there of Turkana which I should be able to get onto the internet no problem at all. Below are the three pictures I took of Turkana with my camera.
Turkana is compared to the lions at Linton Zoo and other collections, pretty small. Talking to his keeper I learnt that his father Blanco was also a small lion, so it is probably just his genetic make up. However despite his slightly small size you can see that he is perfectly built, he does not have short front legs or anything like that. His mane is not too big or too small, and fits his body quite nicely. He does have a rather long face with a pointy chin compared to some of the more rounder faced lions in the UK at the moment (Riziki for example).
For those of you who don't know Turkana was born at the zoo on the 1st July 1996. And he lived with his litter mate Mana. Turkana had many hernia operations when he was younger and it was thought that he would not survive to adulthood, however here he is! Sixteen years later age is beggining to show his coat has got rather pale and he does have a slight skin complaint that isn't seeming to bother him too much at the moment. His mane is definately loosing the dark colouring and is in the inside almost as white as the white lions that are at the opposite end of the park. However in behaviour and mobility there is no problem at all, as he was bounding around the enclosure when it was time for food. All of the loss of colour is natural, it is not normal for a lion to live this long, it would be incredibly rare to find a wild lion at this age, so loss of hair and colour is just a natural process of old age. It is also natural for healing to get slower, so scars and sores from his skin complaint will take longer to heal, this again is just a natural process.
Turkana is incredibly well looked after by his devoted keeper Nick Loudon who near enough spent the entire day caring for him. Turkana has a huge hay bed just for himself, as well as his own heater attached to the roof of his house, so with lots of TLC Turkana is going to have a very happy retired life indeed. Turkana does not seem to be too worried about the death of his sister, according to Nick he knew that she had died and he has been coping really well from it, just as long as he has the company of his keeper to see him.
Turkana is more like the wild lion that you would find in the wild, he is not too big like some of the captive bred lions were bred to be, and he does not suffer from any inbred features, short legs or a stunted appearance. Turkana is a superb lion, doing fantastic for his age. Apart from suffering from a few natural old age processes such as loss of colour and hair and a seperate skin complaint, he is doing perfectly fine.
'T' as he is known will if he keeps going the way he is still have a couple more years atleast left in him, and fingers crossed he will be around for that much longer. Hopefully I will get to see him next year and I will pop round on my days off from work to see him and Nick.
I hope you have all enjoyed reading this post on a very special lion indeed, Turkana was the first lion that I ever saw and even though he is looking a bit old now, he is still fighting on, and has some years still left in him, and there is no doubt at all that his keeper Nick will make sure that he is always in the best of health in his care.
Cheers
James
