ARNAY VITTEAUX: Three lions kept in captivity in Ukraine arrived at a wildlife park in France on Friday, rescued from the war-ravaged country.
Atlas, a male, and lionesses Luladja and Queen — all three around two years old — arrived early in the day at the Auxois park in Burgundy, eastern France, after a journey of nearly 90 hours across Europe.
Their rescue is the latest effort by animal protection organisations to save big cats suffering from the Ukraine upheaval and from human exploitation.
Atlas was handed over by a woman near Kyiv who had had him since he was a cub, said Charlotte von Croy, in charge of emergency rescues at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), a US non-profit organisation.
“He was becoming too aggressive, perhaps because of the bombings,” she said.
The lion is overweight at 294 kilograms, compared with a normal weight of under 200kg for his two-and-a-half years.
The two lionesses were found in eastern Ukraine where they had probably also been kept by private individuals who fled the fighting, Von Croy said.
The three were first picked up by a local NGO, Wild Animal Rescue, which then contacted animal parks abroad willing to give them a new home.
“That’s always the difficult part,” said Von Croy.
Once the new homes were secured, the three cats were taken to France through Poland, a trip lasting 88 hours.
The Auxois park, which keeps around 500 animals, already has a lioness, said its director, Geoffrey Delahaye.
At first, the new arrivals will be kept in large enclosures in the 40-hectare park area, he said, to give them the chance to discover their new environment gradually.
“We will give them time to find their bearings,” Delahaye said.
The IFAW has rescued 13 big cats from Ukraine so far, taking them to the United States, Poland, Belgium, Spain and France.
Von Croy said there were probably around 10 big cats remaining in Ukraine, where keeping felines in private homes remains legal.
Owners are supposed to keep them in large enclosures, but that rule is ignored “in 99 per cent of cases”, Von Croy said.
“These big cats are not only another victim of the Russian invasion but also suffered from human exploitation,” IFAW’s website quoted Natalia Popova of Wild Animal Rescue as saying after an earlier rescue.
Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2024
