Other than the toddler who ran screaming in the other direction, the dozens of people who filed past a quartet of African lion cubs at the Denver Zoo seemed very happy to see them.
Sleek, stoic brothers Kito, Bahati, Usiki and Jasiri — all 14 months old — arrived at the Denver Zoo from Lee Richardson Zoo in Garden City, Kan., where their father Razi (a former Denver Zoo resident) and sister remain. But it wasn’t until Thursday morning that the zoo was ready to show them to the public.
“Every animal that comes into the zoo goes through a 30-day quarantine period, where we isolate them from other animals and just make sure they’re healthy,” said Hollie Colahan, vice president for animal care. “So they’re still in that period, and we’ve been acclimating them in other ways before we start rotating them among the habitats in Benson Predator Ridge.”
The lion cubs, each of whom weigh about 250 pounds, were beginning to get pushed out of their family unit by their father as they hit their “awkward teenage phase,” as Colahan called it. Although that’s common behavior in a pride of lions, it forced the Kansas zoo to find a new place for them to live. The four brothers get along fine because there is no female among them to fight over, zoo officials added.
Enter the Lion Species Survival Plan, a program of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Colahan, a recognized lion expert who is the national coordinator for the program, was able to secure the brothers a spot at the Denver Zoo, doubling its lion population overnight.
The new additions will eventually join adult females Neliah and Sabi, male cub Kalu and female cub Kamara once they become accustomed to their surroundings. The zoo, which keeps many of its animals on some form of birth control, has no official plans to breed them.
“People love baby animals, and they love cubs,” said Denver Zoo spokeswoman Marina Belisle. “And in addition to their father, their grandmother (Baby) and grandfather (Krueger) were also here, so it’s a full-circle moment of getting the family back together. We’re really glad we didn’t have to separate them.”
The four lions are part of a group of about 380 lions across the country in the Species Survival Plan, which covers 100 Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited institutions.“We’ll get to watch these guys grow up here, which is a great way to get people interested in these ambassadors of the wild,” Colahan said. “Lions are in trouble in the world, and we want to get people involved in what we’re doing to help their counterparts in Africa.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists lions as a threatened species. Ballooning human populations in Africa are increasingly erasing and fragmenting wild lions’ available territory and prey.
To welcome the lions, the zoo is offering a special admission and membership discount at . From 1-5 p.m. Friday through Sunday, guests will receive $4 off admission or $16 off family membership. To redeem the discount, guests must show the zoo’s coupon on their cellphone when purchasing tickets or print a copy of the coupon and present it when purchasing tickets at the main entrance.
