New pride at Yorkshire Wildlife Park

[DerekC]

Yorkshire Wildlife Park, is now home to four Lions rescued from Ukraine.
Mother Aysa and cubs Teddi, Emi and Santa. When the war broke out four year old pregnant Aysa was abandoned in a private zoo in the Donetsk region.
She along with many more animals were rescued to a zoo in Poland.
That is were Yorkshire Wildlife Park came in to provide a long term home for the lions.
Paperwork took along time, as they travelled through a number countries to get here. Also as the UK is no longer in the EU it didn't help.

Finally a few week ago they arrived at the park. After a time to acclimatise to their new home last week they were released into the outside enclosure.
This was the first time the nineteen month old cubs had been on grass.

The park is also home to the last two remaining lions Crystal & Carla of thirteen rescued from Romania in 2010.

L to R Teddi, Mum Aysa, Emi & Santa

Aysa

Teddi

Emi

Santa

Teddi

[Ian]

They appear to be inspired by the lions at Trafalgar Square

Ian

[DerekC]

Yes it does remind you of the positions of those lions

[davcoll]

A terrific set Derek.

Dave.

[DerekC]

Thank you..

[MJ224]

Lovely story. I know it can't be helped, but they should be in Africa......

Well photo'd anyway, and good to hear they are safe now....

[DerekC]

In the wild in Africa is their home, but these lions wouldn't survive in the wild. They are safe and well cared for, in a place where they can educate people about wildlife.

They are a lot luckier than many animals in Ukraine. It has been reported that Russian soldiers have been taking pot shots at wild animal in wildlife parks and zoos.

[griffljg]

That is a lovely set of photos Derek. It is easy to see that these are "zoo lions" or "wild park lions". Lions in the wild would be displaying far more "battle scars". I agree that putting this lot of comfortable well-fed lions into the wild would be unkind to them. They wouldn't survive long. On the plus side, these lions will probably live quite a bit longer than their counterparts in the wild.

[MJ224]

My point was that they should never have been taken from the wild. Once they have been humanised, zoo or park, they have to stay. They may well have lost or dimmed their wildlife abilities.

Despite that, great photos....

[rsh1960]

Great set especially number 3

[DerekC]

He is a Handsome young Lion

[tmp]

geez...looks like you were at arms length with some of them
very nice light and details.