Lion Cubs at Longleat Safari Park.

A fantastic post for you all here, many of you will know if you are a regular reader of the blog that Louisa, who was born at Linton Zoo to Zuri and Safi is now at Longleat Safari Park. Her arrival was talked about in this post where she appeared with a couple of other lionesses born at Blackpool Zoo.

Their arrival along with two males Henry and Hugo born at Knowsley Safari Park was going to be the start of a new pride in the woodland area (Pride A area) as the group of elderly females have now been set into retirement. It has been an incredibly long time since focus has drifted to this pride as before this the Pride B group has been pride of place with new males Kabir, and then Nibalo with a whole array of cubs born.

Well I was delighted to find out that not only has the Pride B group had their first set of cubs, but Louisa is one of those two mothers! Longleat Safari Park are now promoting the brand new set of cubs on their website. The photo below is from the Zoo Borns website.

The picture below taken from the Daily Mail Article found on the link here shows two females Nikita and Louisa with seven cubs (there are actually eight). Both females have had four cubs, with two of each gender. I am pretty sure that Louisa is the female at the back to the left of the photo, with Nikita being towards the left at the front. This is the ultimate sign that Louisa has settled in well with no previous kin at the park as she arrived there on her own. The cubs were born in August so they would have been concieved around May, meaning that Louisa definately settled in very quickly with the boys however both litters were sired by Hugo according to the news articles. For first time mums Louisa and Nikita are proving very attentive which is fantastic news, and just what we want to hear.

Louisa's parents and grandparents can be found at Linton Zoological Gardens in Cambridgeshire, the page for the lions at Linton can be found here. Ultimately however she is descended from the Woburn Pride, and Nikita born at Blackpool Zoo is descended from the Longleat Pride B group, her father Wallace was born there under Kabirs reign. Whereas Henry and Hugo descend from the Knowsley group of lions, their father Kenya was also born into the Longleat B Pride, however his father was Mafui, a generation above Kabir. So this is ultimately as far as groups go in the UK, a very mixed group genetically  so cubs born into this group are very much needed. Interestingly it is the only pride formed in the last couple of years or so that has not imported brand new fresh genes from Europe for example Longleat imported Nibalo from Germany for their B Pride and Woburn have imported Kasanga from Holland for their pride. However to make this pride liable genetically giving healthy cubs, there has been a lot of switching and importing of lions from all around the country, so they are not simply just from one place.

So what will the future hold for these cubs? The four females will most probably stay with the pride unless they are needed for breeding elsewhere in the UK (however I would not think so, but who knows what plans are). The four males will most likely end up in other collections, Longleat do not have a history in castrating male lions to keep them in prides (a very good decision in my opinion) however we will have to see where spaces are for them. 

I will keep everyone informed with news of the cubs as to where they end up and so on, please look on all the links to find as many pictures as you like, be warned many are just duplicates.

Hope everyone has enjoyed reading this post.

Cheers

James