Fresh start for rescued lion cub ‘Nong Kiwi’
The lion cub used to attract tourists to a cafe north of Phuket Town by a Chinese national has found a new home, a new playmate and a new name.
The female cub known as “Nong Kiwi” was being displayed at a cafe north of Phuket Town before officials intervened and rescued her on Feb 14.
Anant Sriphutphong, head of the Bueng Chawak NonHunting Area, confirmed that Nong Kiwi on Feb 20 had been delivered by a team of veterinarians from the Conservation Area Administration Office No. 5 in Nakhon Sri Thammarat to the Bueng Chawak Wildlife Management Development Center in Suphanburi Province, where she will remain in care.
Nong Kiwi is two to three months old and weighs 7.3 kilogrammes. She has been renamed, Mr Anant confirmed, and is now known as ‘Khanun’ (’jackfruit’).
She will also have a new friend to socialise with at her new home after a female cub of a similar age known as Khanom (snack or dessert) was rescued from a cafe in Bangkok recently and placed into care at the same facility.
Mr Anant confirmed that both Khanun and Khanom are still receiving special milk formulas every tow to three hours every day, but that meat is slowly being introduced to their diet in the form of finely chopped beef once a day.
Khanun, then known as Nong Kiwi, was being displayed at the Glass House Cafe and Space on Ratsada-Anusorn Rd, in Moo 2, Ratsada for around three hours per day before being taken back to a hotel in Chalong.
Officials from the Khao Phra Thaew Non-Hunting Area in Thalang inspected the venue on Feb 12 and managed to track down the cub and her female owner, a Chinese national, two days later. The cub was taken into care and the woman held to face charges.
A document was released at the time in connection with the case that names the buyer of a female lion cub as Cheung Min. The document shows Cheung Min bought a female lion cub from Fuanglada Siyangnok in Bangkok on Jan 9 for the amount of B250,000.
However, officials confirmed that there was no registered change of ownership for Nong Kiwi, and the microchip number presented on the document does not match the microchip in Nong Kiwi ‒ simply because Nong Kiwi has no microchip.
This led officials to believe that the name on the document is not the same person caught with Nong Kiwi in Phuket. In a confusing move, police have not clarified whether or not the document was presented to police by the Chinese woman arrested, or whether the Chinese woman’s name is Cheung Min.
Regardless, the Chinese woman arrested in Phuket was taken to Phuket City Police Station and charged under the Wild Animal Preservation and Protection Act for “failing to notify the possession of wild animals and moving a protected wild animal without permission”, officials confirmed.
Officials found that where Nong Kiwi was being kept did not meet the criteria under the Act, deemed that it was not appropriate to issue the owner a license to raise a lion cub.