Abused Ukraine lions get home in PE
Four abused lions rescued from captivity in Eastern Europe are on their way to the Kragga Kamma Game Park thanks to an old schoolboy connection from Port Elizabeth’s Westering High School.
The lions were rescued by Westering old boy Lionel de Lange, 53, who is director of the Ukrainian branch of the Lawrence Anthony Earth Organisation, a sanctuary for abused wild animals.
The aim was to relocate the lions to the African home range, but he needed someone to take them on, De Lange said in a telephone interview from the Ukraine on Thursday.
“The first person who popped into my head was Mike Cantor, who had been at school with me at Westering.
“His family owned the Seaview Game Park and he went on to become co-owner of the Kragga Kamma Game Park.”
He got on the phone to Cantor and his wife, Ayesha, and after several months of negotiation and discussion it was agreed that the lions would be relocated to the popular Port Elizabeth reserve.
De Lange said he had originally travelled to the Ukraine in pursuit of a girlfriend and had become involved in wildlife rescue work after the collapse of the Nikolaev Zoo in the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution.
Looking for help, he contacted the earth organisation, which was founded in 2003 by SA conservationist and “elephant whisperer” Lawrence Anthony, who the same year led the famous rescue of animals stranded in the Baghdad Zoo during the US-led invasion of Iraq.
De Lange said he and his team now concentrated mostly on rescuing brown bears which were held in captivity and used as tourist attractions or for dog-baiting, the savage entertainment where dogs are loosed on a tethered bear.
He was busy on a bear operation in Sambir, south of Libov, when he came across four young lionesses being held in a 35m² pit on a farm, he said.
“A circus had come to town and was unable to look after these cats, so [it] just dumped them,” he said.
“This farmer took them over with the idea of starting a private zoo, but they were more than he could handle.
“Besides being so cramped, the pit had never been cleaned out, so it was full of faeces and urine.”
De Lange managed to accomplish his mission of rescuing three bears, but he could not forget the lions he had been forced to leave behind.
He contacted the farmer again and found that one lioness had died, but having convinced the farmer to hand over the remaining three cats, he relocated them to a temporary, bigger enclosure in the Sambir area.
Separately, he rescued a male lion cub from a former circus wild animal trainer and breeder in Khmelnytskyi, west of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
“This little lion was being kept in a concrete-and-iron cage about 15m² with zero sunlight. He was never able to explore, go outside or even just enjoy the simple pleasure of lazing in the sun.”
The authorities were alerted and, after the owner was compelled to get rid of his animals, De Lange stepped in to receive the cub, and then relocated him to a temporary enclosure next to the lionesses.
Cantor said an exhaustive permit system had to be tackled involving both the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and South African Threatened or Protected Species legislation.
Kragga Kamma’s permits were practically all now in place, indications were the international process was nearing finalisation – and the hope was the lions should arrive by the end of October.
Work was under way to prepare a 10,000m² site in the Kragga Kamma Game Park to house the lions.
“We’re getting very excited. Rewilding is not an option so this is the next-best for them.
“They will be all together and compared to where they’ve been I think they’re going to feel very free and content,” De Lange said.