QUETTA, Feb 9: Lioness Leila and her partner Palawan don’t know it yet, but they may soon leave the private sector and take up public residence in Kabul zoo.

“We have decided to offer them to Kabul,” said Mirwais Achakzai, a member of the family here that owns the animals.

Leila and Palawan are about three-and-a-half years old and in fine fettle, consuming some 40kg of fresh meat every three days, their roars of appreciation and rivalry over the last morsel of fresh goat audible across Pushtunabad, where their owners live.

The last lion of Kabul, Marjan — the name means stone — was a gift from Germany 38 years ago.

He endured the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, coups, civil war and most recently US bombing raids. He was half-blind, lame and almost toothless when he finally succumbed to old age last month.

“Palawan and Leila have mated, and we hope that if they have more room and are well-treated they may produce cubs,” Mirwais said. “We’re going to extend their cage here in Quetta and in the meantime contact Kabul.”

Palawan and Leila are not the first lions touted to be new residents in Kabul.

A wildlife park near Beijing said earlier this month it wanted to donate a young lion. It was the second offer within days after a Canadian roadside zoo operator said he had two 18-month-old African male lions ready to be shipped to Kabul.

But Mirwais said he was unsure how Palawan and Leila could be moved. They share a cage that runs along the side of a courtyard. The door is low and narrow. “We can’t just put them in a pick-up and drive them into Afghanistan,” he said.

An avid watcher of National Geographic wildlife programmes on satellite television, Mirwais has heard that a non-governmental organization has promised to refurbish Kabul zoo and he wants advice on how to move them.

“My own feeling is that if they’ll probably have to be carefully sedated.”—Reuters