Zoo animals are always in great danger during wartime, but the Yorkshire Wildlife Park has been working to get a lioness mother and her three cubs from Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv to the safety of their zoo’s sprawling enclosure for months.
Safe but not sound, they were transferred from Kyiv to a holding facility in Poznan, Western Poland, where they remain to this day.
Pregnant lioness Aysa was left in a deserted private zoo in the Eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine. She was eventually rescued and transferred to a temporary sanctuary near Kyiv, where she gave birth to her three adorable cubs Emi, Santa, and Teddi.
“The lions were so distressed when I first encountered them,” said Deputy Section Head of Carnivores for Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Colin Northcott. “The cubs… cowered on top of each other in the corner and often hissed and spat loudly at me.”
“Seeing them so terrified made me feel desperately sorry for them, but by the end of the week that I was there, they were starting to trust me more so I felt terrible leaving them behind.”
Far from anywhere a southern African lion would feel at home, the Yorkshire zoo nevertheless hosts rescued lions in a 260-acre enclosure called Lion Country, and had previously rescued 13 lions from a Romanian zoo in 2010 and brought them to Yorkshire.
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The story of these lions, which were kept in concrete holding pens, touched the hearts of people across Yorkshire and the surrounding areas, and a public appeal raised $175,000—a staggering amount by conservation standards—to build a new reserve to house these poor animals, which would become Lion Country.
There is currently no arrival date for Asya and her cubs to come to the zoo, but staff are working with Polish authorities to arrange the necessary paperwork, and Colin has continued his work with Asya and her cubs by playing them sounds from the park, which has more than 400 animals in it, to get them accustomed to their new surroundings.
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“When Lion Country was built for the rescue of the 13 lions from Romania in 2010, it was built with the help of donations from people who loved animals and wanted to help rescue the animals,” said John Minion, CEO of Yorkshire Wildlife Park.
“It was always meant to be a welfare facility and now we are in a position where we can offer a home to these poor lions and hope that we can make a difference to their lives, just as we did for the Romanian lions in 2010.”
WATCH the story from the park…
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