'Surprise' white lion cubs to live out their days at Cape sanctuary
Aletta Harrison | about 2 hours ago
CAPE TOWN - Three rare white lions cubs that surprised a Western Cape sanctuary with their birth just days before Christmas, will receive life-long care at the facility.
The trio are the offspring of a pair of white lions that used to be housed at the Tygerberg Zoo before it closed down.
Brutus and Nala surprised staff at the Drakenstein Lion Park, who were not aware that the lioness was pregnant, let alone that she’d given birth.
"We initially thought that Nala, the mother, was ill because she was behaving strangely," explains owner Paul Hart.
The lioness kept her cubs so well hidden – ten days passed before staff discovered the reason for her odd behaviour.
Their shock was compounded by the fact that Brutus had been sterilised in 2011.
Hart says the sanctuary doesn’t believe breeding lions in captivity is an ethical or worthwhile pursuit, since the animals can never be released into the wild.
He adds that many of the rescued lions are also severely inbred and there would be no advantage in terms of preserving bloodlines.
"As a sanctuary, we provide homes to rescued and abused animals and provide lifetime care to those animals. And then, very importantly, we don’t breed with our lions at all. All our lions spend the rest of their natural lives here and we rather fill up with rescued lions, rather than produce our own.”
He explains that the only real market for captive-bred lions in South Africa is for canned hunting.
“That’s obviously something we’re very much opposed to. It’s a fallacy that you can take a captive-bred, hand-reared lion and let it run free in the wild and it will live happily ever after."
WATCH: Christmas miracle as lion sanctuary welcomes white cubs.
Visitors to the park shouldn’t expect to be able to pet the cubs - a practice Hart says is linked to the canned hunting industry.
"We definitely don’t agree with the practice at all. Lion cubs are far better off being with their mothers and there is absolutely no way that we’d ever consider engaging in it," he told Eyewitness News.
While the pair is being commended for displaying healthy, instinctive parenting skills, the couple will not be allowed to procreate again. Brutus will be booked for another operation before he has the opportunity to father any more cubs.
http://ewn.co.za/2016/01/05/White-lion- ... -sanctuary