5 STARS FELL INTO OUR LIVES
PART 1 of CUBS THROUGH MY LIFE
On the 10th day of December 2011 Five stars fell into my life and my life was changed forever.
I had never looked after lions before that time. I had not dreamed of caring for lions, not harboured a desire to do so nor ever planned to try to do so. The birth of the STAR Pride was an unheralded but totally fortuitous event.
The first 2 STARS where born on the morning of the 10th December to a mother called Shanti. She had been in a fight and was flat on her side, bleeding profusely when she gave birth prematurely to a tiny female cub. The first one had already been birthed when Taiga and I got to Shanti.
I had been walking out on the land. I had risen at sunrise with a nagging question eating away at me. Should I stay at the lion farm or should I go home to the Cape as planned? We had only come to the farm to help for 2 weeks and were due to leave the following morning.
I would be leaving the farm without management. Pat, the owner was ill. He had not maintained the farm and, perhaps due to his illness, had sunk it into debt amounting to millions. But it was not my problem. I could drive back to my beach-side home and have a good family Christmas where the roaring of lions would not be missed amidst the crashing of summer waves.
I muttered under my breath, "I need a sign".
I had been muttering under my breath for days.
Walking back from the lands, I approached the homestead area surrounding the house in which the 26 lion camps containing 83 lions were situated, Elias came towards me, running and shouting. He waved his hands beckoning for me to come, fast.
I sped up, only pausing to open and close the outer passage gate that would lead me into the gap between Shanti's camp and the rest of the row of camps.
Taiga arrived at Shanti's camp at pretty much the same time as me. In his attempt to find me, Elias had first run to the house where she had responded. She was in her pyjamas. She had been in the garage working on a headboard she and I were making when he burst in yelling about a lion fight.
Taiga and I stood at the fence trying to make out what was happening. Alarmingly, Nancy, an hermaphrodite lioness, who lived with Shanti, was licking the first cub out of her membranous sack. Whilst we were watching this, Shanti stood up, took a few wobbly steps and the second cub was born. I filmed this with my cell phone, not knowing what more I could do to help. Shanti stood for a minute or so while the cub just hung in her sack, cord still attached. She then collapsed as if she weighed nothing, onto her side, appearing to us to be dead.
Nancy left the first cub and went over to the newly delivered second one. Although she had not eaten but only licked that cub, we still feared she'd eat the second cub as she pulled the umbilical cord towards her with one claw. The placenta birthed and slopped along behind the cord as Nancy pulled it away from Shanti's body. Then Nancy picked it up neatly with her front teeth and gave a small shake of her head. The cub dangling from the other end of the cord, swung pendulously.
Elias, who had entered the camp with Pat while I was not paying attention, shouted out and ran towards Nancy, waving his arms. She dropped the placenta and backed off, he quickly picked up the sack containing the cub and handed it through the fence to me telling me to save the lion.
I didn't take it from him.
I did not as yet have an answer to my question.
"mom, take the cub!" Taiga exclaimed
"but I don't know if we should. We would have to stay here for 12 weeks to look after it and I don't know if we should stay" I responded
"You have been asking for a sign, mom, this is your sign!"
"But I don't know what to do, how to look after a lion cub"
"Can't you see, mom, everything you have done your entire life has led you to this point. Do what you would do for a human baby."
Reaching out, I made sure not to shock myself on the electric fence. I took the slimy bundle of lion, nicked the membrane with my teeth and tore it open to get the cub out. While I was busy, Elias swept up the first born cub and handed it through the fence to Taiga.
"If you stay on the farm you can have these cubs" Pat said again, he had been saying this for sometime but I had tuned it out as it had no meaning to me and my world.
I massaged the tiny wet, white baby gently and cleared the nostrils as I would have done with a human infant. But I had never dealt with preemie lion babies so further than what instinct made me do, I did not know what to do with them except to attempt to imitate what the mother would do which is primarily to lick them and keep them warm. So Taiga and I put them inside our shirts and walked down to the farmhouse to get wet cloths with which to simulate licking them. They were so tiny we couldn't quite believe that they were lions.
The entire event was so unreal. The little white creatures resembled lambs more than lions. Only the needle sharp claws belied this notion.
Once Taiga and I had wiped the cubs clean, and managed to stimulate them so that they passed their maconium poo, I began phoning around for instant lessons in cub protocol. I spoke to Onderstepoort Vet School, Pretoria zoo, Johannesburg Lion Park, Dr Adriane Tordiffe, Dr Claire Speedy and Dr Pete Scheepers. The advise differed but I chose to follow Dr Adriane Tordiffe's detailed instructions.
That was a long day and an even longer night. It felt endless. Only one cub would sleep at any one time, while the other let out a screeching high pitched eeeeuh, eeeeuh, eeeeuh call which was only silenced by me snuggling and rubbing her. Not sleeping and snuggling. No! I had to be actively 'licking' and rubbing whilst making low, gentle crooning sounds in answer to her cries. No sooner had she, and then I, fallen asleep, then the second cub would waken and begin screaming.
By 7am when my mother, Pam, walked in to check on me, I was desperate for her to take over from me. Once I had shown her what to do, I walked down to Hunter's Lodge, the cottage we were staying in, showered and climbed into bed. Elias phoned me before I had a chance to fall asleep, he was on his rounds doing the perimeter check. He was phoning to tell me that there were 5 babies in camp 9 with mother Savannah and father Clyde.
When I first became involved in the GG story, the farm was a breeding farm and so; when I arrived there towards the end of 2011 all available females were pregnant or had cubs. Savannah and Clyde lived with Savannah's sister Tara and 3 of their daughters, Spice, Drumbeat Girl and Eagle Lady. None of these females were spayed and Clyde could make any of them pregnant.
I dressed quickly. Elias collected me in the farm bakkie and we headed down to Camp 9 where we found Pat watching the cubs through binoculars. Camp 9 was one of the few camps that had trees. In fact, there are also ancestral graves in Camp 9, that is where Savannah had chosen to give birth, in a spot protected on one side by a fallen branch and 2 sides by grave stones and long grass. Savannah herself had moved off into Camp 8 next door which at that time was accessible to the pride in Camp 9 via an open gate.
We watched the snuffling movements of the 5 blind cubs in the abandoned den. Eeeeuh, Eeeeuh, Eeeuh the cubs screeched, calling for Savannah who continued to ignore them.
Clyde however was intrigued by the screaming cubs, he stalked closer and sniffed around. Savannah would growl and charge towards him but not enter Camp 9, she would then return to lying with her sister and grown daughters. Where she'd roll on her back, nuzzle and rub the other lionesses.
One of the cubs squirmed away from the den area, Clyde raced forwards and grabbed it. He swatted it around in the air and dribbled it from paw to paw on the ground in front of him before leaving the limp body and grabbing at another cub.
We all shouted from the fence line, waved our arms and Elias lobbed stones between Clyde and the cubs. Clyde backed off. But he did not stay away, he circled the den. He would feign disinterest just before suddenly changing direction mid-leap, landing next to the cubs. He grabbed once more at a cub in the group, swotting it away from the den. My heart leaped into my throat. But instead of following the newly swatted cub, his attention was drawn to the body of the first cub and he walked over to it. We decided that we urgently needed to move Clyde into Camp 8 and close the gate. Pat and I tossed stones when Clyde tired of his cub toy and tried to return to the live cubs. Elias went up to the shed to fetch some meat with which to bait Clyde into Camp 8.
Elias returned, coming down the outside of the camps alongside of the inter leading gate between 8 and 9. In order to attract Clyde's attention, he swung the meat back and forth calling out to Clyde. I jumped up and started towards him to discuss how we could possibly get Savannah into Camp 9 before closing the gate. In other words to swap Clyde out and Savannah in. Clyde snarled at me, he charged in my direction making repeated lunges towards me, growling and pawing viciously at the ground. I ignored him and trotted around the fence line to get to Elias. Clyde was following me, if I continued passed the gate, he would have to go through it to stay in line with me. So I did that, my thinking was that if Elias didn't use the meat to lure Clyde, and Clyde followed me further up the fence line, the path for Savannah to go through to her cubs would be clear and Elias could throw the meat to lure Savannah that way if she was not interested in the cubs.
It worked. Clyde followed me up beyond the gate and Savannah raced into Camp 9 to get the meat Elias was swinging as bait.
Elias threw the meat to her before pulling the gate closed. She grabbed the meat and dashed back in through the closing gap. She was faster than Elias.
On successfully locking the inter-leading gate with all the adults in Camp8, we entered Camp 9 and picked up the cubs. Two were dead and another drowsy with a gash to his umbilical area. The other two were feisty and at least twice the size and weight of the two white cubs I had become so familiar with throughout the previous 24 hours.
I tried to hold all 3 live babies close to me while Pat drove us back to the farm house. Elias and I carried them inside where we found my human children eating breakfast at the dining room table. Their initial response was disbelief, Mom! How could you have brought us more babies, the 2 we have are already ridiculously hard to deal with? In about a further 5 minutes, each of my 3 children were in love with the cub that they held in their arms.
Pat joined us at the breakfast table. He told my children that they could go back to Sedgefield with their granny but that their mother was going to stay there to look after him and the farm because she now had all these cubs to keep her there.
My children chimed in that we would all stay to look after the cubs but that on no terms was I allowed to stay on at Glen Garriff alone with Pat, whose mental instability they had observed in all its wobbly glory.
Elias urged us to name the 5 cubs using my children's names. My children flatly refused. The cubs are individuals, they deserve their own names, said Rhoan, it is a presumptuous to name them after us, it takes something away from them.
So the name The STARS Pride came from my children deciding to name the 5 cubs with names starting with our initials, So S for Shanead, T for Taiga, A for Andi, R for Rhoan and S for plural leading to Sienna, Tindra, Aslan, Reign and Shannon.
The name Tindra was inspired by my niece Merric Tindra Lewer-Allen and Shannon was inspired by my other niece, Shannon Coetser.
The joy that these little ones brought into our lives met us like a freight train. The thing about raising lion babies is primarily that they are not ordinary. They grow exceptionally fast, are vicious when on the defense, have sharp bits and above all else, have the disposition of cats
Lions want attention when they want it. Ignore you when they choose to. Race around the house at 4pm and 4am chasing imaginary quarry or dust mites or your ankles. They are hungry every 4 hours and behave as if they have been maltreated by a negligent parent every other hour. They will crouch behind furniture or even a skinny weed in order to launch themselves upon you when you walk past. They climb up curtains, unmake beds, bite all power cables in half, open doors and take over all official seating spots like sofas and chairs leaving the human family to sit on the coffee table or the floor.
There was a cage up near the Top House that was historically used for keeping cubs in, but we were not going to place these cubs in a small ex-rabbit hok on their own. The cage stood in the middle of the mowed lawn next to the tractor shed and cold rooms. It had 2m by 1m of outdoor section and approximately 1m by 1m of built in roofed section. There was no tree or shade for the cage. We would also have to go up to the cage every time we fed the cubs. Instead, they lived in our house (still then called Hunter's Lodge) when they were very little, and we repurposed the leaky verandah and fenced off the garden and fruit orchard for them as they reached a size large enough to run around outside. We built them a jungle gym out of tyres, wooden ramps, ladders and platforms.
But the most interesting thing, which is now so obvious I'm almost reluctant to write this bit; is that each lion has a uniquely peculiar character all of their very own. No two are alike. Some may share similar characteristics and of course there are common lion behavioural traits, but the idiosyncratic nature of the individual stands out.
Every single aspect of our lives was changed by the birth of the STARS. Keeping the 7 STARS safe for the rest of their lives became the guiding agenda of my life.
Two other lions joined the STARS making it a group of 7 lions. Fonda and Tamarind have their own stories which I will write about in another instalment of CUBS THROUGH MY LIFE.
A notable moment came when I moved the 2 males out of the STARS enclosure because they had reached an age when they were able to impregnate the females. I had deliberated within my own mind and made the decision to move Shannon and Aslan into the only natural looking enclosure at the farm away from human contact. I wished for them to become more than the 'lions who charged down to the fence every time Andi approached'. They sulked and ignored me for weeks, but eventually settled into their own rhythm unaffected by me.
When I think back at how I hadn't known whether or not to move my life to the Free State to look after the lions at the lion farm, I cannot believe the path was not lit out in brightest lights for me. For days I had been deliberating and praying for a sign. Yet my whole life purpose is about these lions.
My growth as a human being grew in leaps and bounds over this time. My growth as a lion carer evolved from one of fascination and bewilderment to one of serious contempt for the 'con in conservation'. I was the STARS mother, but they should never have needed a human mother in the first place.
After I left the lion farm, I continued to fight for the STARS, I eventually managed to move 3 of the STARS to Love Lions Alive Sanctuary. We have SR&S with us in safety, enjoying the best enclosure money could buy. I was not allowed to take Aslan and I was told that Tindra had died.
I have added photos below of the 3 STARS in their new home at Love Lions Alive Sanctuary.
When they arrived they were not fit enough to run up the hill to the top end of their enclosure where we feed them. They had, over the first few weeks, to build up stamina and fitness, but now they run and roam everywhere. They spend a good deal of their time lying on top of the highest boulder surveying the view. My heart is gladdened every day.
As happy as I am to see these lions in this particular setting, it is still wrong that they are in captivity at all. I am 100% opposed to the breeding of lions in captivity. I do not believe that one more lion should be born into this unnatural way of life. I did the best I could for the lions who were born into the situation as I found it. We have sterilised or placed onto contraception, all females at LLA. I am against human ego involving itself with lions or trying to have dominion over a greater and more powerful being. Lions should be free. At LLA we work towards the goal of giving the lions back their pride. I have written this story about cubs in my life so as to share the lessons I have learned. The choice then was to let them die or to look after them. I do not know if I would make the same initial choice now. Having seen first hand the lives that captive bred lions have to lead in inadequate spaces with inadequate nutrition which results in lives led in pain, I now work only towards providing improved quality of life to those already in existence somewhere in the world.
I am adding a list of all the cubs I have dealt with over the past 6 years. This list will be attached to the end of each instalment of Cubs Through My life so that everyone can see who is who and the timeline involved.
CUBS THROUGH MY LIFE....
As I have already written, the lion farm I went to in 2011 was at the time of my arrival, a breeding farm. In an attempt to stop the breeding, I separated breeding pairs 4 months after I arrived there (Jan 2012).
Cubs Already born when I arrived at the farm
Cubs which we raised who were all born to females already pregnant when I arrived.
Cubs who remained with their mothers, conceived before I separated male and female in Jan 2012:
On the 10th day of December 2011 Five stars fell into my life and my life was changed forever.
I had never looked after lions before that time. I had not dreamed of caring for lions, not harboured a desire to do so nor ever planned to try to do so. The birth of the STAR Pride was an unheralded but totally fortuitous event.
 |
| Nursing Tindra |
 |
| Sienna as a newborn |
I had been walking out on the land. I had risen at sunrise with a nagging question eating away at me. Should I stay at the lion farm or should I go home to the Cape as planned? We had only come to the farm to help for 2 weeks and were due to leave the following morning.
I would be leaving the farm without management. Pat, the owner was ill. He had not maintained the farm and, perhaps due to his illness, had sunk it into debt amounting to millions. But it was not my problem. I could drive back to my beach-side home and have a good family Christmas where the roaring of lions would not be missed amidst the crashing of summer waves.
I muttered under my breath, "I need a sign".
I had been muttering under my breath for days.
Walking back from the lands, I approached the homestead area surrounding the house in which the 26 lion camps containing 83 lions were situated, Elias came towards me, running and shouting. He waved his hands beckoning for me to come, fast.
I sped up, only pausing to open and close the outer passage gate that would lead me into the gap between Shanti's camp and the rest of the row of camps.
Taiga arrived at Shanti's camp at pretty much the same time as me. In his attempt to find me, Elias had first run to the house where she had responded. She was in her pyjamas. She had been in the garage working on a headboard she and I were making when he burst in yelling about a lion fight.
Taiga and I stood at the fence trying to make out what was happening. Alarmingly, Nancy, an hermaphrodite lioness, who lived with Shanti, was licking the first cub out of her membranous sack. Whilst we were watching this, Shanti stood up, took a few wobbly steps and the second cub was born. I filmed this with my cell phone, not knowing what more I could do to help. Shanti stood for a minute or so while the cub just hung in her sack, cord still attached. She then collapsed as if she weighed nothing, onto her side, appearing to us to be dead.
Nancy left the first cub and went over to the newly delivered second one. Although she had not eaten but only licked that cub, we still feared she'd eat the second cub as she pulled the umbilical cord towards her with one claw. The placenta birthed and slopped along behind the cord as Nancy pulled it away from Shanti's body. Then Nancy picked it up neatly with her front teeth and gave a small shake of her head. The cub dangling from the other end of the cord, swung pendulously.
Elias, who had entered the camp with Pat while I was not paying attention, shouted out and ran towards Nancy, waving his arms. She dropped the placenta and backed off, he quickly picked up the sack containing the cub and handed it through the fence to me telling me to save the lion.
I didn't take it from him.
I did not as yet have an answer to my question.
"mom, take the cub!" Taiga exclaimed
"but I don't know if we should. We would have to stay here for 12 weeks to look after it and I don't know if we should stay" I responded
"You have been asking for a sign, mom, this is your sign!"
"But I don't know what to do, how to look after a lion cub"
"Can't you see, mom, everything you have done your entire life has led you to this point. Do what you would do for a human baby."
Reaching out, I made sure not to shock myself on the electric fence. I took the slimy bundle of lion, nicked the membrane with my teeth and tore it open to get the cub out. While I was busy, Elias swept up the first born cub and handed it through the fence to Taiga.
"If you stay on the farm you can have these cubs" Pat said again, he had been saying this for sometime but I had tuned it out as it had no meaning to me and my world.
I massaged the tiny wet, white baby gently and cleared the nostrils as I would have done with a human infant. But I had never dealt with preemie lion babies so further than what instinct made me do, I did not know what to do with them except to attempt to imitate what the mother would do which is primarily to lick them and keep them warm. So Taiga and I put them inside our shirts and walked down to the farmhouse to get wet cloths with which to simulate licking them. They were so tiny we couldn't quite believe that they were lions.
The entire event was so unreal. The little white creatures resembled lambs more than lions. Only the needle sharp claws belied this notion.
Once Taiga and I had wiped the cubs clean, and managed to stimulate them so that they passed their maconium poo, I began phoning around for instant lessons in cub protocol. I spoke to Onderstepoort Vet School, Pretoria zoo, Johannesburg Lion Park, Dr Adriane Tordiffe, Dr Claire Speedy and Dr Pete Scheepers. The advise differed but I chose to follow Dr Adriane Tordiffe's detailed instructions.
That was a long day and an even longer night. It felt endless. Only one cub would sleep at any one time, while the other let out a screeching high pitched eeeeuh, eeeeuh, eeeeuh call which was only silenced by me snuggling and rubbing her. Not sleeping and snuggling. No! I had to be actively 'licking' and rubbing whilst making low, gentle crooning sounds in answer to her cries. No sooner had she, and then I, fallen asleep, then the second cub would waken and begin screaming.
By 7am when my mother, Pam, walked in to check on me, I was desperate for her to take over from me. Once I had shown her what to do, I walked down to Hunter's Lodge, the cottage we were staying in, showered and climbed into bed. Elias phoned me before I had a chance to fall asleep, he was on his rounds doing the perimeter check. He was phoning to tell me that there were 5 babies in camp 9 with mother Savannah and father Clyde.
When I first became involved in the GG story, the farm was a breeding farm and so; when I arrived there towards the end of 2011 all available females were pregnant or had cubs. Savannah and Clyde lived with Savannah's sister Tara and 3 of their daughters, Spice, Drumbeat Girl and Eagle Lady. None of these females were spayed and Clyde could make any of them pregnant.
I dressed quickly. Elias collected me in the farm bakkie and we headed down to Camp 9 where we found Pat watching the cubs through binoculars. Camp 9 was one of the few camps that had trees. In fact, there are also ancestral graves in Camp 9, that is where Savannah had chosen to give birth, in a spot protected on one side by a fallen branch and 2 sides by grave stones and long grass. Savannah herself had moved off into Camp 8 next door which at that time was accessible to the pride in Camp 9 via an open gate.
We watched the snuffling movements of the 5 blind cubs in the abandoned den. Eeeeuh, Eeeeuh, Eeeuh the cubs screeched, calling for Savannah who continued to ignore them.
Clyde however was intrigued by the screaming cubs, he stalked closer and sniffed around. Savannah would growl and charge towards him but not enter Camp 9, she would then return to lying with her sister and grown daughters. Where she'd roll on her back, nuzzle and rub the other lionesses.
One of the cubs squirmed away from the den area, Clyde raced forwards and grabbed it. He swatted it around in the air and dribbled it from paw to paw on the ground in front of him before leaving the limp body and grabbing at another cub.
We all shouted from the fence line, waved our arms and Elias lobbed stones between Clyde and the cubs. Clyde backed off. But he did not stay away, he circled the den. He would feign disinterest just before suddenly changing direction mid-leap, landing next to the cubs. He grabbed once more at a cub in the group, swotting it away from the den. My heart leaped into my throat. But instead of following the newly swatted cub, his attention was drawn to the body of the first cub and he walked over to it. We decided that we urgently needed to move Clyde into Camp 8 and close the gate. Pat and I tossed stones when Clyde tired of his cub toy and tried to return to the live cubs. Elias went up to the shed to fetch some meat with which to bait Clyde into Camp 8.
Elias returned, coming down the outside of the camps alongside of the inter leading gate between 8 and 9. In order to attract Clyde's attention, he swung the meat back and forth calling out to Clyde. I jumped up and started towards him to discuss how we could possibly get Savannah into Camp 9 before closing the gate. In other words to swap Clyde out and Savannah in. Clyde snarled at me, he charged in my direction making repeated lunges towards me, growling and pawing viciously at the ground. I ignored him and trotted around the fence line to get to Elias. Clyde was following me, if I continued passed the gate, he would have to go through it to stay in line with me. So I did that, my thinking was that if Elias didn't use the meat to lure Clyde, and Clyde followed me further up the fence line, the path for Savannah to go through to her cubs would be clear and Elias could throw the meat to lure Savannah that way if she was not interested in the cubs.
It worked. Clyde followed me up beyond the gate and Savannah raced into Camp 9 to get the meat Elias was swinging as bait.
Elias threw the meat to her before pulling the gate closed. She grabbed the meat and dashed back in through the closing gap. She was faster than Elias.
On successfully locking the inter-leading gate with all the adults in Camp8, we entered Camp 9 and picked up the cubs. Two were dead and another drowsy with a gash to his umbilical area. The other two were feisty and at least twice the size and weight of the two white cubs I had become so familiar with throughout the previous 24 hours.
I tried to hold all 3 live babies close to me while Pat drove us back to the farm house. Elias and I carried them inside where we found my human children eating breakfast at the dining room table. Their initial response was disbelief, Mom! How could you have brought us more babies, the 2 we have are already ridiculously hard to deal with? In about a further 5 minutes, each of my 3 children were in love with the cub that they held in their arms.
Pat joined us at the breakfast table. He told my children that they could go back to Sedgefield with their granny but that their mother was going to stay there to look after him and the farm because she now had all these cubs to keep her there.
My children chimed in that we would all stay to look after the cubs but that on no terms was I allowed to stay on at Glen Garriff alone with Pat, whose mental instability they had observed in all its wobbly glory.
Elias urged us to name the 5 cubs using my children's names. My children flatly refused. The cubs are individuals, they deserve their own names, said Rhoan, it is a presumptuous to name them after us, it takes something away from them.
So the name The STARS Pride came from my children deciding to name the 5 cubs with names starting with our initials, So S for Shanead, T for Taiga, A for Andi, R for Rhoan and S for plural leading to Sienna, Tindra, Aslan, Reign and Shannon.
The name Tindra was inspired by my niece Merric Tindra Lewer-Allen and Shannon was inspired by my other niece, Shannon Coetser.
The joy that these little ones brought into our lives met us like a freight train. The thing about raising lion babies is primarily that they are not ordinary. They grow exceptionally fast, are vicious when on the defense, have sharp bits and above all else, have the disposition of cats
Lions want attention when they want it. Ignore you when they choose to. Race around the house at 4pm and 4am chasing imaginary quarry or dust mites or your ankles. They are hungry every 4 hours and behave as if they have been maltreated by a negligent parent every other hour. They will crouch behind furniture or even a skinny weed in order to launch themselves upon you when you walk past. They climb up curtains, unmake beds, bite all power cables in half, open doors and take over all official seating spots like sofas and chairs leaving the human family to sit on the coffee table or the floor.
There was a cage up near the Top House that was historically used for keeping cubs in, but we were not going to place these cubs in a small ex-rabbit hok on their own. The cage stood in the middle of the mowed lawn next to the tractor shed and cold rooms. It had 2m by 1m of outdoor section and approximately 1m by 1m of built in roofed section. There was no tree or shade for the cage. We would also have to go up to the cage every time we fed the cubs. Instead, they lived in our house (still then called Hunter's Lodge) when they were very little, and we repurposed the leaky verandah and fenced off the garden and fruit orchard for them as they reached a size large enough to run around outside. We built them a jungle gym out of tyres, wooden ramps, ladders and platforms.
 |
| The 5 STARS on the sofa |
 |
| Andi Feeding Sienna |
 |
| Shanéad feeding Shannon |
 |
| Taking Shannon to the vet. All the cubs had Calici Virus. We only took him in for diagnosis because he was the calmest cub having been isolated as a newborn after the others sucked his umbilical cord off resulting in infection. |
 |
| Shanéad and Tindra |
 |
| Shanéad found a spot on the sofa |
But the most interesting thing, which is now so obvious I'm almost reluctant to write this bit; is that each lion has a uniquely peculiar character all of their very own. No two are alike. Some may share similar characteristics and of course there are common lion behavioural traits, but the idiosyncratic nature of the individual stands out.
Every single aspect of our lives was changed by the birth of the STARS. Keeping the 7 STARS safe for the rest of their lives became the guiding agenda of my life.
Two other lions joined the STARS making it a group of 7 lions. Fonda and Tamarind have their own stories which I will write about in another instalment of CUBS THROUGH MY LIFE.
A notable moment came when I moved the 2 males out of the STARS enclosure because they had reached an age when they were able to impregnate the females. I had deliberated within my own mind and made the decision to move Shannon and Aslan into the only natural looking enclosure at the farm away from human contact. I wished for them to become more than the 'lions who charged down to the fence every time Andi approached'. They sulked and ignored me for weeks, but eventually settled into their own rhythm unaffected by me.
 |
| Taiga and the STARS |
 |
| Reign giving me kisses. |
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| Me giving Reign kisses |
 |
| Reign love. Honoured! |
 |
| Reign again |
 |
| The STARS make it onto TV |
My growth as a human being grew in leaps and bounds over this time. My growth as a lion carer evolved from one of fascination and bewilderment to one of serious contempt for the 'con in conservation'. I was the STARS mother, but they should never have needed a human mother in the first place.
After I left the lion farm, I continued to fight for the STARS, I eventually managed to move 3 of the STARS to Love Lions Alive Sanctuary. We have SR&S with us in safety, enjoying the best enclosure money could buy. I was not allowed to take Aslan and I was told that Tindra had died.
I have added photos below of the 3 STARS in their new home at Love Lions Alive Sanctuary.
 |
| Dr Caldwell sedated the lions to move them to LLA in March 2017 |
When they arrived they were not fit enough to run up the hill to the top end of their enclosure where we feed them. They had, over the first few weeks, to build up stamina and fitness, but now they run and roam everywhere. They spend a good deal of their time lying on top of the highest boulder surveying the view. My heart is gladdened every day.
As happy as I am to see these lions in this particular setting, it is still wrong that they are in captivity at all. I am 100% opposed to the breeding of lions in captivity. I do not believe that one more lion should be born into this unnatural way of life. I did the best I could for the lions who were born into the situation as I found it. We have sterilised or placed onto contraception, all females at LLA. I am against human ego involving itself with lions or trying to have dominion over a greater and more powerful being. Lions should be free. At LLA we work towards the goal of giving the lions back their pride. I have written this story about cubs in my life so as to share the lessons I have learned. The choice then was to let them die or to look after them. I do not know if I would make the same initial choice now. Having seen first hand the lives that captive bred lions have to lead in inadequate spaces with inadequate nutrition which results in lives led in pain, I now work only towards providing improved quality of life to those already in existence somewhere in the world.
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| Reign coming down to the dam, Sienna in the background |
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| SRS enjoying the shade |
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| Shannon running into the open ground beneath the boulders |
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| Shannon gazing out at the open vistas from his new enclosure |
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| Love Lions Alive Sanctuary. Safety! |
I am adding a list of all the cubs I have dealt with over the past 6 years. This list will be attached to the end of each instalment of Cubs Through My life so that everyone can see who is who and the timeline involved.
CUBS THROUGH MY LIFE....
As I have already written, the lion farm I went to in 2011 was at the time of my arrival, a breeding farm. In an attempt to stop the breeding, I separated breeding pairs 4 months after I arrived there (Jan 2012).
Cubs Already born when I arrived at the farm
- August 2011 Daniel, Reg, Scar, Vilaphe (4 month old when we arrived, they were terrified. Rhoan worked slowly slowly to get them to calm down by lying on the ground for hours and crawling ever closer over the course of a week. They became unafraid but were never close to humans nor ever touched by us.)
- June 2011 Fonda (returned to us at age 6months because she was too much for the couple who she'd been given to in a buffalo/lion swap by Pat when she was born.)
Cubs which we raised who were all born to females already pregnant when I arrived.
- Dec 2011 The Stars (Sienna, Tindra, Aslan, Reign, Shannon)
- Jan 2012 The Spice Girls (Tamarind, Saffron, Masala)
- Jan 2012 Thuleli
- Feb 2012 The S Girls (Smila, Siva, Lilla Stina, Sapphire)
- Feb 2012 Aliya & Milan
- April 2012 Shalom
- April 2012 Ariel & Skye
Cubs who remained with their mothers, conceived before I separated male and female in Jan 2012:
- Aug 2011 Malaika, Asia, Arryn
- March 2012 Thulani, Nelson
- April 2012 Silver, Cyrius White, Blu
- April 2012 Storm
- Dec 2013 Leah, Luke, Lennon,
- Nov 2013 Shaka, Nandi, Zandile, Zodwa (Taai was from this group)
- Dec 2013 Cember's 2 girls (not named in the 6 months I was still there as I had asked Pat to decide on names)
- Nov 2013 Taai
- Feb 2015 The Love Pride (Lyla, Lilly, Lebanon)
- March 2015 Mela
- July 2016 Carl
- Sept 2016 Mulan & Odin
- July 2022 Nahara
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