Meet The Ukrainian Lions Who Now Call Yorkshire Home
Discover Yorkshire Wildlife Park's newest residents - a family of lions rescued from Ukraine
When human tragedy strikes, so often animals pay a high price and when war broke out in Ukraine in 2022, a young lion named Aysa was left behind when the owner of a private collection of exotic animals fled the country. After being relocated to Kiev, giving birth to three cubs, and being transported a further 500 miles to Poland, Yorkshire Wildlife Park stepped in to give Aysa and her cubs a second chance at life.
Colin Northcott, Deputy Head of the Carnivore Team, works closely with the lions and was a key member of the team who helped to bring them over from their temporary home in Poland. Although the keepers in Poland did the best they could, their zoo was simply not equipped to deal with four rescued lions. ‘Unfortunately, their whole accommodation was supposed to be temporary, so they were placed in the tiger house and they didn’t have enough space to have an outdoor area or even a large area within the house,’ he says. ‘The keepers there did a fantastic job and they looked after them really well, but they didn’t have the facilities to get the family back together again. So these poor cubs were terrified, they had essentially been taken from their mum at a very early age and spent most of their lives travelling in small, confined spaces. It was quite traumatic for them.’
Despite the diligent efforts of the Polish zookeepers, the lions’ experiences in Ukraine and time spent travelling across Europe had left them in a sorry state. ‘When I went to see them in Poland last year they were terrified,’ Colin says. ‘The cubs were cowering in the corner, climbing over each other and hiding from me and the other keepers. It was obvious to me then that we had to get them out of that situation as soon as we could.’
Luckily, Yorkshire Wildlife Park, just outside Doncaster, had the perfect place for the new family. ‘We’ve got a very large facility that was originally built for rescue lions. The facility at Yorkshire Wildlife Park is about seven acres, which includes three separate enclosures which are all interlocking, a decent-sized house and very large pens,’ Colin explains. ‘We don’t cram the place, but the pens could house four to six lions in one so there’s loads of space, and there’s a lovely river running through it with a waterfall at one end.’ The facility was home to rescue lions from Romania more than a decade ago, but as the years passed many of the lions passed away from old age. ‘We’re down to two old ladies who are 17 years old called Crystal and Carla,’ he says. ‘So luckily we had this massive facility that was practically empty and it made sense to step in and do our bit to help these Ukrainian lions.’
Despite everything they’d been through, Aysa and her cubs adapted to life in Yorkshire surprisingly well. ‘It can take quite a long time for animals, especially lions, to adapt. When they’re moved it’s quite traumatic because of the travelling, crating and everything that’s involved, so we try and do it as smoothly and calmly as we can,’ Colin explains. ‘But it was actually remarkably quick. Literally, within an hour or so, the cubs had really calmed down and you could physically see the more relaxed demeanour in their body language. They were so relaxed that we decided the next day we would look at an introduction with mum.’
Time spent apart when travelling, plus the drying up of Aysa’s milk, had led to a certain level of hostility between the mother and cubs, who were separated from her for safety. ‘In our facility we have the ability to do what we call ‘mesh meet’. Some of our door hatches are just pure mesh rather than a solid slide, and that way you can have the lions up really close to each other without being able to get physical. We were able to put mum on one side with one of the cubs on the other side so they could see each other and interact without risk.’ To everyone’s delight, the meeting went well and before long mother and cubs were fully reunited. ‘Within an hour we had all three cubs and mum back together again and living as one family, and they haven’t been separated since.’
Happily settled in their new home, Colin has noticed a massive change from the lions he first met in Poland all those months ago. ‘Fast forward to today and they are a perfect, beautiful, happy family. They’re so well settled at the park you would think that they were born here and had lived here all their lives.
‘The cubs are about 20 months old now, give or take, and they’ve practically doubled in size since arriving in Yorkshire. When they were in Poland, they didn’t have the space to exercise, but here they’ve had all the exercise they need. There’s still a bit of growing to do yet as they are youngsters and not fully grown, but their development is incredible to see.’
With their new found confidence comes heaps of personality – something Colin knows all about from working so closely with them. ‘Mum is quite collected, although when she sees me she does get a bit excitable. She carries herself with dignity and then forgets herself and has a play with the cubs because she’s not very old herself. She’s not quite five years old and she was very young when she had her cubs.
‘Santa is the slightly larger female cub and she is definitely the bravest of the three. She would be the one at the front when the other two were hiding behind her and now she’s the same size as her mum which is incredible, and you can see that presence coming through in her now, although she is very much still a cub and will still play.
‘Then you’ve got Teddi who’s the male, and who was probably the most scared of all the cubs. He was a proper scaredy-cat and he would hide behind Santa, but now Teddi is getting himself a stunning mane and he is what we unofficially call a belly mane lion, where the mane is so big and grand that it runs all the way down along the belly. As he gets older you can tell he’s going to be a real king of the jungle, but at the moment he’s still got his baby face. Emi is the smallest, and probably the most adorable. She’s the one that the other two tend to pick on a little bit, although she can hold her own and she’s the one that everyone falls in love with.’
Looking after a family of lions is no small task and, unsurprisingly, it involves a lot of cleaning up. ‘Once we let them out in the morning, we can then start cleaning the house where they have been and that involves sprucing up the enclosure, and picking up any mess they’ve left for us, changing their water and giving them fresh bedding,’ explains Colin, and the same goes for the outdoor space. ‘Before they are let out in the enclosure (because we don’t want to be eaten), we will go out there and pick up any mess which could be bones from a previous meal, or any toys they’ve pulled out.’
But it’s not all about picking up after the youngsters. ‘We also add enrichment items so that when they come in on an evening they have something new to play with. They particularly like boomer balls, which are small solid plastic balls that they can bat around without puncturing and they can throw around the place. We give them drain pipe sections which they like to roll on the floor and sometimes we put their food in there to make it more interesting for them.
‘I think one thing that might surprise people about our lions is that as part of their enrichment routine we quite often give them human scents like body sprays and aftershave. We spray it all around the enclosure and although it sounds odd they actually really love to smell new things and roll in it.’ Just like a dog on a walk rolling in anything they find, lions do this to help guard their territories. ‘The stronger they smell, the more it will get picked up in the breeze and travel across land,’ Colin explains. ‘We do get a lot of scents like that donated to us, and not just for the lions but for the tigers and hyenas too – they all love it.’
After such a hectic start in life, will there be further journeys for this young family? ‘No,’ says Colin. ‘This is their forever home, and we have no plans to move them anywhere. They will hopefully be here until the end of their days in this really nice, happy, safe home well away from the bombs and whatever else may have happened to them.’
