During the cat show in the summer, I
feed the lions and tigers up by the fence where hundreds of people
come to watch them eat. At our zoo we feed small pieces of red meat
as a snack during the show. The lions are fed separately, either our
male is out by himself or the two females are together. I get a lot of questions about why the lions are fed
separately – it's a long story so I'll take some time to explain n
detail.
Boomer, our male lion, was kept as a
pet until he escaped from the house and was confiscated. You can read
one of the new articles here. He's a hand raised cat and he's spent a
lot of time around people. Mali and Kali, our two female lions, were
born at our zoo. They were raised by their lion parents and have no
interest in people unless you are giving them food... or becoming their
food. Boomer came to out zoo in May 2011 after our 19 year old male
lion (Mali and Kali's father) passed away in January 2011 from
cancer. Every animals that comes to a zoo has to go through a one
month period where they are quarantined. After Boomer finished his
quarantine with a clean bill of health, we let him out into a holding
yard which allowed Boomer to interact with the girls through a fence.
There was a lot of aggression at first. The girls would roar at
Boomer and try to scratch him through the mesh. As time went on the
girls grew more accustomed to Boomer and the aggression seem to
decrease. Once we had gone almost a month without witnessing any
aggression between Boomer and Mali, we decided to introduce them face
to face.
We started our lion introductions on
October 7th 2011. It was a very nerve racking day for me since it was
the first time I had ever done something like this before. We choose
to start with Mail, the more dominant of the two sisters, because she
was the one that had shown least aggression through the shared fence
for the longest amount of time. We gather a small team of myself,
another keeper, two managers and our vet tech. We armed ourselves
with a hose, a shovel to make noise, and a CO2 extinguisher. If big
cats want to kill each other they'll do it in the first couple of
minuets, so this really was a make or break moment.
We moved Boomer and Mali into their
stalls. At first we pulled the guillotine door open slightly so that
they could smell each other without too much contact and then we
opened the door all the way. When the door was opened fully, Mali and
Boomer instantly started fighting. Boomer released his scent glands
and the whole cat house stunk - even more than usual. One of the
keepers sprayed them with the hose and they separated shortly after.
Boomer spent the rest of the time as far away from Mali as possible.
We separated them after half an hour and called it a successful first
day. The next few days were fairly uneventful. Boomer and Mali
continued to stay in their respective stalls and nothing happened. We
started to move away from them during their time together, hoping
that our absence would force them to focus on each other. One day
when I checked on them, Boomer and Mali had switch stalls silently
and without any problems. We carried on this way for a week until we
felt that there was no more progress to be made indoors.
The next step was to let them out into
the holding pen. We would still be able to spray them with the hose,
but it definitely left us with less control than indoors. Holding our
breaths, we opened to doors and Mali took off with Boomer running
after her. They fought for about seven minuets that first day. The
days following, they continued to fight but their battles become
shorter. Most of the battles later in the week were due to Boomer's
stupidity. He would playfully stalk Mali until he got too close and
she would choose to defend herself. Once Boomer and Mali seemed more
comfortable with one another, we started to let Kali out into the
large pen as well so that the sisters could see each other. They
seemed much happier to be able to smell one another through the
fence. I had to roll my eyes, since the introductions were no longer
that 45 minuets a day at this point but when Kali and Mali were put
back together they behaved as if they had been separated for months.
A few weeks later we switched the
females. We brought Kali and Boomer into their stalls and repeated
the procedure for the indoor introductions. The results were very
anticlimactic. When we pulled the door open, there were no fights and
Boomer just stood there looking at Kali. Kali didn't take any
silliness from Boomer. She roared at him the second he got too close
to her and Boomer was practically trying to climb the walls of his
stall to get away from her. It only took a couple of days before we
decided that it was time to let the two of them out into the holding
pen. Once again, the result wasn't as dramatic. There were a few
small fights in the holding pen but nothing like the ones between
Boomer and Mali.
Our decisions to move forward were
always based on the lions' behavior. With Mali, it had taken much
longer for the fights to subside and for them to reach a standstill,
but with Kali everything was much faster. The fights between Boomer
and Mali resulted in sore hips for Mali. We tried to switch the girls
every other day but it became apparent that Mali needed more rest
that Kali so we gave Mali a few days off. Animal health is our number
one concern and if there were any major health issues then all
introductions would stop until we'd resolved the problem. Mali's hips
healed and she started to look much stronger. Once we were sure that
Mali was well enough, we decided to put all three of them together in
the holding pen. We gathered a team of keepers and managers in
preparation for what we knew would be a big fight, but when we opened
the gate and all three of them were together nothing happened. The
girls stayed inside and Boomer sat by the edge of the door and looked
in at them. A couple of days later, the girls were out in the holding
pen when we let Boomer join them. He went straight for Mali, would
was standing a little ways away from her sister. Kali ran to her
sister's rescue and a big fight ensued. Once they broke apart, the
girls ran to one end of the pen and Boomer gravitated towards myself
and our vet tech. I picked a claw casing out of Boomer's mane and
comforted him through the fence. Being a hand raised cat means Boomer
often behaves like a spoiled child rather than a lion. We felt there
was no harm in providing him with some support while the girls were
teaming up on him, but we've started to withdraw from Boomer since
then and he's starting to become “his own lion” as a result.
As the days passed, we came to a
standstill once again. The lions would fight occasionally and Boomer
usually got the worst of it. We made the decision to let all three of
them out into the big pen. This gave us much less control over their
fights but it was time. When we let them out into the big pen things
went well. Once, Kali even set down right next to Boomer but she
nipped him in the bum shortly after and it started a big fight. Every
time the lions are together, someone was always watching them. Once
the keepers and our vet tech decided that it would be safe to leave
the lions unsupervised we started to increase the time Boomer spent
with the girls.
It's been a year since all of this
begun and we've definitely made some progress but things are far from
over. Boomer spend 24/7 with Mali and they get along fairly well.
When the three of them are together, Kali will behave for a while,
but then she'll attack Boomer. She's taken a few chunks out of his
tail, but nothing more than a lion can handle. While Boomer heals, we
put Kali on time out. We keep Kali separate from Boomer so that she
doesn't make his injuries worse and he spends all him time with Mali
instead. The lions still aren't ready to eat together at the cat
show. Captive cats still maintain their instincts and if the girls
feel like they need to compete with Boomer for food then I know
they'll fight constantly. Introducing lions is no easy task and we're
hoping that the three of them can live together soon, but that all
depends on their behavior – especially Kali.
