LIVES LIVED IN PAIN FOR YOUR PLEASURE?

Lions. I do not feel that I can sit here in my tent and begin to write down a description which can in any way do justice to lions. Their strength is not just physical, you should see how they carry the burdens imposed on them.

Seeing as I live surrounded by lions in 'cages', it is a subject close to my heart. Lions (jaguars and pumas), should not be living behind fences. So, if they are, how do we bring as much dignity to their lives as possible.

Adding quality to lives which have been captured. Most of you know about the dedication we put into our enclosures and how we prioritise proper and beautiful design. We give them warmth in the form of sheltering boulders, long grass, bushes, trees and man-made shelters. But do you know that if they are not fed correctly, they can not make proper use of these.

Right now I am really cold, I am sitting on a furry rug next to a gas heater. It is the middle of the day and the winter sun is shining bright. The air however is ice cold. Not that it's windy. In fact it is remarkably still, not a tent flap is flapping. I can hear the lions' foot steps crunching as they tread through the crisp grass. I have a pot of butternut soup simmering on the stove. Two dogs lie snuggled in the blankets at my feet.

The big cats are all in their midday, winter spots. They use the rocks as warm pedestals to raise

themselves to the sun. As cats, they find cracks and crevices, shelves and leeward slopes so that the rock itself provides a barrier from the breeze. It is only later, when the sun dips, that they move down to tuck themselves into the deep golden grass or crawl into tunnels they've formed in the bushes.

Some of the cats have man-made shelters which we women have built for them. We have positioned these against large boulders. A sturdy wooden roof provides a platform for them to climb on top. But when underneath this wooden platform, it is a roof. The boulder blocks off one side whilst we have blocked off another side or two using wood and stone. We have lined the floor with a thick mattress of teff (straw). 

Some of the cats use their shelters some of the time. Some of them do not choose to use them. 

There are cats who cannot climb onto their shelter roofs nor clamber up on the rocks. Those cats arrived at LLA with neurological conditions which have resulted in hind leg parasis, green stick fractures, thickening of the skull and varying degrees of ocular degeneration.

These physical weaknesses are a result of malnutrition. 

In other words, lions who are not fed properly, live compromised lives lived in pain. Their reduced mobility results in weakness of limbs, muscle atrophy, incorrect pressure on joints and deformity; which in turn produces further reduced mobility and so the cycle continues. 

Let me describe what I have seen at lions facilities in South Africa and abroad...

Lions dragging their hind quarters around as they pull themselves through the sand. They don't complain, they simply adjust to their new restrictions and get on with doing the best they can.

Live lions who appear to be wearing moth-eaten taxidermist coats from the 1800's.

Lions who stare, blindly, with open eyes looking straight past the object on which they are trying to focus.

I have seen lions with such difficulty moving, that they are left lying alongside of or on top of their excrement. Healthy lions will almost always try to defecate away from their living area. At LLA we find their scat in piles in one corner of their enclosure or even inside an old aardvark burrow or termite hill. They do not choose to lie in it.

Many lions I have seen are still on their way to paresis and are walking around with green stick fractures, tongues lolling a little bit out, intermittent limps and lack of balance. But because they are robust lions, they keep on walking.

You try living like that.

In another post on another day, I will write about the 4 brothers Stripey, Smokey, Ice and Fire. It was through the sudden collapse and subsequent death of Fire in 2014 that I first learnt of Vitamin A deficiency in lions. Lions in captivity are susceptible to hypovitaminosis A. This effects their eyes resulting in various degrees of blindness, dying corneas, night blindness and star gazing. The lion's immune system is impaired. They may suffer from intermittent convulsions. Pathological lesions include severe thickening of the cranial bones with consequent marked compression of the brain and partial herniation of the cerebellum. Neurological signs like ataxia and hind limb paresis can be seen.

HELLO! these are not congenital illness, not hereditary, not specific to one poor lion who happened to be born with a defect. It is a matter of feeding them correctly or allowing them to live compromised lives lived in pain. Very often, people do nothing about this correctable condition, because a semi paralyzed lion is so much easier to interact with. The lion cannot rise up onto their hind legs to swat or jump on their trainers, tourists and 'beloved' owners.

NOTE.... part of the cycle of breeding, cub petting, walking with lions, culling for bones, hunting etc is the life lived in pain.

Right now we have a few big cats still on the road to recovery at LLA. We feed them supplements every day. They get a specially formulated vitamin and mineral mixture made for us by Dr Peter Caldwell. In addition we give those in need, extra supplements and medicines as prescribed. Frieda had X-rays taken when she first displayed signs of Vitaminosis and her skull is 5x thicker than it should be. She sometimes limps and she often wobbles. Her tongue lolls out. Due to her weakness and pain, she pulls away from the other two lionesses and shows submission whereas she used to be the most confident of the three. This is the result of her body not living up to her nature. 

We are doing everything we can to correct the imbalance, disrespect and lack of proper care given to our cats before they came to us. Luckily for little Nala, Lionel asked us for details on exactly what and how to care for a cub, which information he passed on to Nala's carer. It is a matter of education. This begins with people not breeding and hand raising cubs, but if, for one or other reason, they find them selves as the person who has to help a cub, learn how to do it correctly.