PAARL, South Africa (AP) - Freya, a 6-month-old lion cub rescued from the wildlife trade in Lebanon, poked a curious nose out of her transport crate and sniffed the air. Satisfied, she took her first cautious steps in her new forever home in a sanctuary in South Africa.
Freya the rescued lion cub is safe in South Africa, but many other lions there are bred to be shot
PAARL, South Africa (AP) - Freya, a 6-month-old lion cub rescued from the wildlife trade in Lebanon, poked a curious nose out of her transport crate and sniffed the air. Satisfied, she took her first cautious steps in her new forever home in a sanctuary in South Africa.
Freya’s relocation to the Drakenstein Lion Park is only a partial success story.
She will never live as a lion should in the wild. She has been given lifetime sanctuary at Drakenstein, which has taken in other lions from zoos and circuses in France, Chile, Romania and elsewhere. Some have terrible backstories of abuse, noted on placards at the sanctuary: Ares was blind and neglected when he was rescued. Brutus had been beaten hard enough to break his jaw.
But as Freya settles in at Drakenstein, animal welfare groups have again drawn attention to South Africa’s contradictory position when it comes to the species that often symbolizes African wildlife.