More than 10,000 years ago Lions thrived in many different continents from North to South America to Europe, Africa and Asia. Today, following climatic changes, centuries of hunting and loss of habitat they live in scattered habitats across Africa. To prevent them from becoming as rare as the tiger (their closest relative) large regions of habitat with sufficient prey need to be protected.
Last week The Great Lion Project was lucky enough to gain five more Lions at the reserve in Limpopo, South Africa. Three of which are cubs who belong to one of the females. They will be held in the 'Boma' enclosure for three months until they are familiar with the surroundings and are ready to join the rest of the reserve. There are currently three other lions on the reserve, two females and one male called Mbhurri who we hope will mate with the new females. In the wild, Mbhurri would most probably kill these cubs and so we have to be very careful when they are finally introduced. A massive 60-70 % of cubs die each year in the wild and so it's always so exciting to see new arrivals and we can't wait to watch them grow into beautiful strong adults.
Celebrations continue on the reserve as just a few weeks ago, a leopard; the most secretive and elusive of all large carnivores was collared successfully. He is only young and has not yet established a territory, which makes tracking him very hard sometimes. However, we are all very excited to follow him and see how things will work out! Hopefully this will be the start of something wonderful to come. In the wild you're lucky to even catch a glimpse of one and if he leads us to a female then soon enough then we may even get the chance to see some leopard cubs too!
