Maja Hampson's Zoo Keeping Adventures

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 7^th 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.