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A family of rescued lions, freed from war-torn Ukraine, are thriving in their new Yorkshire home, celebrating their first Christmas with playful joy and a festive feast
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Ukrainian lions celebrate first Christmas at Yorkshire Wildlife Park
A family of lions freed from Ukraine have enjoyed their first Christmas at their new home.
The playful pride, who arrived at Yorkshire Wildlife Park in March, have a growing fan club since the Mirror revealed their story. This week, they were happily playing with their Christmas present of a yellow egg-shaped ball. Colin Northcott, 60, one of the park’s carnivore experts, travelled to Poland to bring the rescued lions to Doncaster, South Yorks.
He said: “I’m chuffed to bits with them. They have settled in fantastically well and you’d think they’d been here forever. They were indoors when they were in Poland and a few weeks ago they saw their first flurry of snow… and ignored it. They all sleep together – ever since they were first reunited here. They are just a hugely happy group of lions who are loving life at the moment.”
The lions ended up at Poznan Zoo in Poland after they were abandoned by the owners of a private zoo in Donetsk, Ukraine, who fled as bombs fell around them after the Russian invasion. When they eventually arrived in Yorkshire, they were able to run in a straight line for the first time in their lives and see the sky.
Initially, they were obsessed with birds and little visitors to the park. But now six-year-old Aysa and her three cubs, Emi, Santa and Teddi, who are two, ignore the visitors and instead spend their time tumbling around and playing together. In Poland, the cubs were in one tiny pen, cowering and their mum was next door. They could hear and smell but not see each other.
Staff at the park first reintroduced the separated pride with a “mesh meet” before one-by-one introducing them face-to-face with mum. But within the first hour, they had all four lions together in the pen where they have cuddled up together every night since. Colin added: “I came in this morning and they all jumped up out of bed and had a little head rub against the bars, they really do enjoy seeing me arrive.
“They love to rough-and-tumble, and it’s so funny to see them play fighting. They go racing out together and all dive on each other and roll over, they do forward rolls.” He said Teddi is probably the naughtiest of the pride, hiding and jumping out on the others, but is soon put in his place by the females.
Colin said: “The changes I’ve seen in him to go from the most scared cats to one of the bravest, who comes forward and asserts himself, has been phenomenal. Talking about it now is making me feel a little bit emotional. This has been one of the highlights of my whole career. They’ve had such an impact on me. If anything ever happened to them I would be devastated.”
“Having these lions gives you a fresh boost and fresh feeling of purpose. Watching the staff develop around them is wonderful too. Because of their history, they should be hard to work with but these four have thrown the book out of the window. On bonfire night for instance, when there’s fireworks going off and we were all nervous and they were rock solid. It’s just been amazing to watch them.”
For their Christmas dinner, the lions were given fresh cuts of meat in boxes to tuck into and give them extra scent.