BIRTH IN LION’S DEN BEYOND THE PALE
His name is White King, he’s 10 days old and the zoo says he’s a real “teddy bear”. But the lioness who bore him rejected him after a traumatic birth.
The cub is the first white lion born in a Spanish zoo and he’s getting no shortage of cuddles from zoo staff along with bottles of milk.
His mother, a white lioness brought over from Thailand four years ago, had “laboured for 14 or 15 days before giving birth” at the Mundo Park zoo near Seville. And when he finally emerged, he was a hefty little fellow.
“It was a bad birth,” zoo director Juan Luis Malpartida said. “Just imagine what she went through, I don’t know how she got him out.”
Mr Malpartida, a 73-yearold who has spent his life surrounded by animals, said the cub didn’t feed in his first three days, and after realising his mother “wasn’t paying him any attention”, staff retrieved him as he was dehydrated and suffering from “hypothermia and hypoglycaemia”.
By Wednesday, the change was evident.
“It’s the first day I’ve seen with his head held up, trying to run,” he said. For now the mother appears happy enough after her ordeal. “She wanted to be free of the cub, she was ready to mate again.”
White King will be one of the biggest attractions when this zoo, which counts 3000 animals, reopens this week following a three-month closure due to the epidemic.
He will eventually return to his parents “but it’s a delicate issue because then he will competing with his father” for mum’s attention,” Mr Malpartida said.