Latest news with #lions
BBC News
12 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Big cat owners hide their animals amid Pakistani crackdown
The smell hanging in the air is the first sign there's something unusual about the farmhouse on the outskirts of one of Pakistan's largest cities, inside, the cause becomes clear: the property is home to 26 lions, tigers and cubs – and belongs to rain, he says, has turned the ground into the animals are "happy here", he insists. "When they see us, they come over, they eat... they're not aggressive."Almost instantly, one of the lions roars."That one is aggressive, it's his nature," Fayyaz says. Fayyaz loves big cats. From this facility – thought to be the largest of its kind in private hands nationwide – the 38-year-old has sold cubs and breeding pairs for the last 10 years. He is widely considered to be one of the biggest lion dealers in decades these animals – lions, tigers, pumas, cheetahs and jaguars – have been a sign of power, status and even political fealty in the country. The tiger, for example, is a symbol of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. More recently, with the dawn of short video social media apps like TikTok and Instagram, there's been a surge in ownership, with lions now sometimes even brought along to wedding in the wake of a pet lion escaping and attacking a woman and her two children as they walked down the street in Lahore, the government has launched a crackdown – one which is already impacting people like Fayyaz. Among the new rules, owners must pay a one-time registration fee of 50,000 Pakistani rupees ($176; £129) per animal and farms are to keep a maximum of 10 big cats from no more than two species. The sites must also be open to the public for new laws could result in a fine of up to 200,000 Pakistani rupees and, for the worst offenders, up to seven years in another property on the outskirts of Lahore, five lion cubs – their coats muddied – pace around a cage."But where are the parents?" a wildlife official asks there are several empty cages. Wildlife officials are here after receiving a tip-off that a man was holding lions and cubs without a licence, and was breeding them for sale illegally. By the time they arrived, the owner was missing, leaving his caretaker holding the bag."I was only hired two weeks ago," he complains, as he was placed in the back of a truck and taken away for questioning. The officials suspect the owner may have taken the cubs' parents away and hidden rescued cubs have now been transferred to a public zoo in Lahore, and isolated for medical in a country where big cats have been sold for decades, officials worry the raids are barely scratching the surface. They believe there are in fact hundreds, if not thousands, of undeclared big cats in the state of Punjab alone."This is going to take at least six months," Mubeen Ellahi, the director general of Wildlife & Parks, tells the BBC. He expects 30-40% of the lions in Punjab will not be voluntarily is also another complication. Mubeen explains inbreeding has become a common practice in Pakistan, and some big cats may have to be euthanised. "They have a lot of health problems. We are still considering the policy," he added. He pointed to another incident in December last year, when another lion escaped in Lahore, and was then shot and at Fayyaz's property, he is considering what to do official told the BBC they're dissatisfied with the size of the cages, and that the farm needs to convert itself into a zoo. Fayyaz now has three months to animal rights groups believe more needs to be done for these animals."We've been calling for sanctuaries, not zoos," Altamush Saeed told the BBC. He wants more transparency of the conditions inside the zoos, and for the government to properly address the problem of privately owning big cats."We need a systematic solution, not stopgaps."Additional reporting by Usman Zahid and Malik Mudassir
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Kidnappers Planned to Force a 12-Year-Old Girl into Marriage. A Pride of Lions Came To Her Rescue
How three lions saved a 12-year-old girl in 2005NEED TO KNOW The young girl was kidnapped while walking home from school and was missing for a week A pride of lions rescued the girl from her captors and "stood guard" Find out how the girl's actions likely drew the lions' attentionIt's been 20 years since an Ethiopian 'miracle,' but it's still no less astonishing today. In June 2005, a 12-year-old girl who had been kidnapped, beaten and missing for a week was found alive after three lions in Ethiopia chased off the captors and protected her. Reports claim that the girl was taken by a group of seven men who sought to force her into marriage. "They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest," Sergeant Wondimu Wendaju told NBC News of the pride's actions afterward. "If the lions had not come then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage.' The girl was "shocked and terrified" and had to be treated for cuts from the beatings, Wendaju said. Reports at the time indicated the girl was kidnapped while walking home from school and was soon after held captive in a remote location. At some point, however, the men, with the girl in tow, attempted to move down a dusty trail through the outskirts of Bita Genet, about 350 miles from the country's capital, Addis Ababa. The sounds of the movements and the weeping of a scared girl likely alerted the pride of lions. In fact, wildlife expert Stuart Williams told NBC that the girl likely stayed alive because she cried. 'A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they didn't eat her,' he said. Wendaju added, 'Everyone thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people.' Ethiopia's lions are rather revered in Ethiopia, and are the country's national symbol, adorning statues and the local currency. Famous for their large black manes, Ethiopian Lions are highly endangered, as it's believed that only a few hundred are alive today, according to LionAid, a lion conservation and education charity. Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword
The Guardian
12-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
The mane attraction: How many lions are in Australia and how well are they regulated?
Visitors seeking a 'prey's eye view' can get within 'clawing range' of lions at one Australian zoo. Or they can experience the 'thrill of a lifetime' by standing near enough to a lion to feel its breath as they pass meat through the fence with kitchen tongs. 'Want to feed a lion by hand?' You can do that too if you find the right zoo. Visitors can pay $150 to place meat directly on their palm and feed it to a hungry lion through the bars. A visit to the zoo is usually considered a fun family day out, and lions are a popular drawcard. While details are not yet clear, the recent maiming of a woman related to the zoo owner in a staff-only area at Darling Downs zoo at the weekend has offered a stark reminder that lions are held in facilities across the country, and encounters with the apex predators can come with risk. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Zoos can be an important part of conserving the lion as species, officially classed as 'vulnerable', but public fascination with the powerful big cats means they have been the centrepiece of zoos and public spectacle centuries before their status in the wild declined. Lions have been kept in captivity since the Roman empire, skulls belonging to lions have been unearthed in the Tower of London – believed to have been part of the royal menagerie 700 years prior – and in the 1800s live lions were shipped over the oceans to entertain the colonists in Australian zoos. Wallace, one of Melbourne Zoo's first lions, was famous for his love of classical gramophone music. Today these kings of the jungle can be found at wildlife parks dotted around Australia – from the famous big city zoos and their open air counterparts to the south coast of New South Wales, the Darling Downs of Queensland and the Victorian Alps. Which begs the question – just how many lions are there in Australia? And how well are the facilities they are kept in being regulated? 'When people think of zoos, they often think of the big cats – tigers and lions,' says Dr Eduardo J Fernandez, animal behaviour program director at the University of Adelaide and an expert in the family felidae, which includes the big cats. There are about 100 lions in Australian zoos, according to Zoos and Aquarium Association Australasia (ZAAA), along with other big cats. Fernandez says standards and protocols – like those covered by the ZAAA accreditation – are critical for both animal welfare and safety, particularly for 'any animal that poses potential danger', which is every species of big cat. Accreditation for ZAAA, is a self-assessment process. There are now between 75 and 80 accredited operations in Australia, but ZAAA estimates about 200 licensed animal facilities in the country, which range from wildlife shelters and hospitals to zoos, wildlife parks and aquariums. 'The better zoos in Australia will be part of the [ZAAA] accreditation scheme,' says Assoc. Prof Alex Whittaker, an animal welfare law expert at the University of Adelaide. However, she says, national species-specific regulation or guidance is limited. And while national standards for the care of exhibited animals were endorsed by governments in 2019, they have not yet been adopted across all jurisdictions. The rules and oversight of facilities keeping dangerous animals varies by state and territory. In addition to its own zoo-specific laws, NSW sets minimum standards for exhibiting carnivores, including specifications for lion enclosures – fences at least 4.5m in height with 5mm mesh. Similar, but slightly different, rules apply in Victoria. Will Meikle, a zoo animal welfare expert was involved in developing NSW laws and standards that regulate the keeping of exotic animals. 'From a physical perspective, you obviously have to maintain safety of staff and visitors to the facilities and ensure that the animals are able to be safely held in captivity that they're not going to escape.' But, even carefully designed enclosures aren't impenetrable. In 2022, five lions escaped their enclosure at Sydney's Taronga zoo, forcing visitors to hide in safe zones and triggering a review of zoo safety. Later, footage showed the animals managed to scratch and break through a security fence. Many zoo websites – from large, publicly funded institutions to small regional wildlife parks – promote paid encounters offering the chance to 'hand feed' lions and other dangerous carnivores. Such closeup encounters are common at zoos worldwide and considered safe, with 75% offering some sort of human-animal experience, according to a 2019 study. 'There's a real interest by people who want to feed the animals,' says Meikle. 'If people can't feed the animals, they want to see somebody feeding the animals, and they want to interact with the animals as much as they can.' These sorts of experiences would usually be covered by an internal operating procedure rather than regulation, he says. Fernandez, who has written a book on zoo animal-visitor interactions, says these could be positive from a welfare perspective, but their outcomes are rarely assessed. 'It's critical that we evaluate the impact, because there are many instances of different types of interactions that can be good for the welfare of the animal [and] be enriching. But there's also many instances, historically, that have been detrimental.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion And there is evidence the public is deeply concerned about animal wellbeing. In 2020-21, researcher Dr Janice Vaz surveyed 375 people, including 164 Australians, for their views on big cats in zoos. She found the public preferred to see animals kept in modern enclosures with naturalistic exhibits, suggesting a deeper concern for animal welfare and generally disapproved of direct interactions like feeding or playing with clubs. 'It can be a hard task even for people caring for their own house cats to get right, let alone trying to meet the needs of a wild, 130kg+ carnivore,' says feline behaviour researcher, Julia Henning. 'Lions have evolved to be excellent hunters, and this behaviour is hard wired into them. This means that it is not enough to simply provide them with food, they require an ability to express the behaviours they would usually associate with the food such as hunting, stalking and ambushing.' Zoos use enrichment activities to mimic aspects of foraging behaviours, like carcass feeding, says Fernandez, but constantly evaluating and adapting practices is essential. There are limitations, and huge variation in the quality of the environment and enrichment provided. Recreating the natural environment is ideal, but a challenge. Fernandez says generally, as lions are a social species, it is good to have a pride of lions held together. In the wild, a lion's home range might extend to 10,000 hectares. The largest enclosure in Australia, at South Australia's Monarto Safari Park, is 11-hectares, while the minimum size in Victoria and NSW is 200 to 300 metres-square. Incidents, while extremely rare, do occur. 'There are inherent risks when working with wildlife and certain behaviours can be unpredictable, however zoos and aquariums have policies in place to minimise these risks,' a ZAAA spokesperson says. 'The sector is continuously improving its standards, and incidents like this [the 6 July incident] will be followed with careful review.' A Biosecurity Queensland spokesperson says authorised animal exhibitors are expected to manage risks with exhibited animals, and the department was 'working to gather further information related to the incident'. Workplace Health and Safety Queensland is also investigating. All incidents should provoke 'deep consideration' of how we 'house, treat and interact with animals in our care', says Henning. 'It should prompt zoos and other organisations to question the need for their encounters.'
ABC News
11-07-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Pakistan cracks down on illegal lion ownership after escaped pet mauls woman and two kids
Pakistani authorities say they have confiscated 18 lions kept illegally as pets in Punjab province following a public outcry after an escaped pet lion mauled a woman and two children on a street in Lahore. The woman suffered scratches and bruises in the attack last week, while two children aged five and seven were hospitalised with non-life-threatening injuries. The owner of the lion was arrested. Experts say it is a mammoth task to stifle exotic big cat ownership in Pakistan, which has proliferated over the past decade thanks in part to social media. Punjab's Wildlife and Parks Department says there are 584 lions and tigers in homes and breeding farms across the province. Hira Jaleel, a visiting assistant professor at the United States Centre for Animal Law Studies, has worked on animal-related legal issues in Pakistan. Ms Jaleel said illegal wildlife ownership was prolific. She said many of the big cats were kept in unsavoury conditions. "It obviously leads to really poor welfare for these animals, especially when they're being kept in people's backyards, being declawed, perpetually sedated and used as photo ops," she said. The painful process of declawing — amputating the last digital bone in cubs — is associated with increased biting and aggression but is often undertaken to make pet animals more "harmless". Even so, because of their large size, lions are sometimes kept drugged to keep them placid. Some say keeping exotic animals as pets is a trend fuelled by social media — but it has historic roots. A tiger is the election symbol for one of the three major political parties in Pakistan, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN), whose founder — Nawaz Sharif — has served as Pakistan's prime minister for three terms, and the animals are often seen at political rallies. "People were bringing tigers and lions to political rallies and it became a way of showing solidarity with the ruling party or your political affiliation," Ms Jaleel said. Big cats have also become social media fodder in recent decades, with owners flaunting the pets as a symbol of luxury and wealth. Some are used as props for wedding photos, and cubs are sometimes given as gifts. In March 2022, a video showing a TikTok celebrity being swiped at by a colleague's pet lion, which had to be restrained, went viral. WWF Pakistan senior director of conservation Rab Nawaz said influencers played an important role in the conversation around big cat ownership in Pakistan. "That's half the battle, to make the public understand what goes on in the background, how the animals are kept," he said. "If the public is behind us or behind the department, it will be very easy to stop. "Because people will not be buying those animals if they realise the suffering they go through and the danger they pose to the public at large." In January a Pakistani YouTuber with 5 million subscribers was ordered to create 12 animal welfare videos as punishment for illegally owning a lion cub. "It was a novel way of actually punishing him. And I think perhaps it did work," Mr Nawaz said. New regulations introduced this year stipulate individuals can keep a pet lion if they pay a fee to obtain a licence and adhere to the required cage size. The punishment for keeping a lion without a licence is up to seven years in jail. In recent days, the Punjab government has also said it will enforce the sterilisation of lions, tigers and leopards kept in private possession. But Ms Jaleel said enforcement was difficult and a patchwork of provincial laws that allowed exotic pet ownership to various extents had hindered any attempts to regulate lion ownership in the past. "There is just this loophole where the wildlife department is best positioned to exercise authority over these animals but actually doesn't really have authority under the law to do so," she said. Rehoming confiscated lions also poses a significant challenge because African lions are not indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and cannot be released into the wild. Lions are sent to safari parks and zoos, which have seen an influx of big cats in recent years, many confiscated from private owners. Ms Jaleel said it was a problem that Pakistan could no longer ignore. "The proliferation of big cats in the country has become a problem that is just out of control at this point. The wildlife department knows it, the federal government knows it, people know it," she said. "So really, the question is: How many more lions and people have to suffer before something's actually done about it?"
Daily Mail
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Married At First Sight star under fire for shocking act with lions after woman lost her arm in QLD mauling
Married At First Sight star Al Perkins sparked concern on Wednesday when he shared a video of himself getting up close and personal with lions while in Zambia. The shocking video, filmed on a wildlife reserve, left fans reeling as they quickly pointed out the recent reports of a QLD woman who lost her arm to a lion on Sunday. Jo Cabban, 46, a teacher from NSW, was flown to Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital after being mauled at Darling Downs Zoo in Pilton, near Toowoomba. But it seemed Perkins, 28, didn't have a care in the world, and he was seen walking down an African wildlife trail with two lions on either side of him. 'We are in Zambia with wild lions. This is crazy,' he said with a huge smile, as he reached down to pet one of the creatures as their tails flicked back and forth. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Perkins' fans flocked to the comments in fear, with one writing: 'Haven't you heard about the woman in Queensland who lost her arm to a lioness 2 days ago?' 'What the f*** are you doing!!!!' wrote another. A third added, 'Meanwhile in QLD a lady had her arm eaten off,' as someone else noted: 'Playing with fire, man.' But while some were concerned for the Love Island star's safety, others praised Perkins for embarking on such a daring adventure. 'Awesome! Looks like a dream trip,' said one. 'So sick tho AL,' another commented. 'BROOOOO THIS IS SICK!!!!' someone else enthused. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Perkins for comment. The shocking video, filmed on a wildlife reserve, left fans reeling as they quickly pointed out the recent reports of a QLD woman who lost her arm to a lion on Sunday But while some were concerned for the Love Island star's safety, others praised Perkins for embarking on such a daring adventure It comes after the Darling Downs Zoo co-owner Steve Robinson confirmed it was his sister-in-law who lost an arm in the lion attack. Cabban is currently in stable condition in the hospital. Robinson told media the victim is 'a lovely lady whose life has been altered'. He said the attack shocked staff and the local community, where the family-owned business has operated since 2005. 'It's still very raw,' Robinson, who owns the zoo with his wife and Cabban's sister Stephanie Robinson, said. Cabban visited the zoo several times in the school holidays over the past 20 years, acting as a photographer. Robinson said although zoo staff were nearby, no one witnessed the attack near a holding pen and 'it was all over in a split second'. 'She certainly was not in the enclosure. Nobody goes into the enclosures with adult lions,' he said. A lion keeper at the scene when the incident happened used a belt as a tourniquet, with Robinson saying the worker had saved his sister-in-law's life. Robinson refused to describe his sister-in-law's injuries, saying they were: 'Too macabre.' The attack did not happen in a part of the zoo open to the public, and there were no 'stand-off fences' as it was an area where the animal keepers worked. The Courier Mail reported Cabban was in a cleaning pen with her sister and a keeper when the attack happened about 8.30am on Sunday, just 30 minutes before the zoo was due to open. Robinson also said he was not sure why the attack happened. 'The best we can come up with, at this stage, is the lion was just playing,' Robinson said. 'How she was playing with a human in that circumstance is yet to be determined. This is not a lion fault. Lions are lions. This is what they are.' The zoo previously said the victim was watching animal keepers work in the carnivore precinct when the attack occurred, and she was aware of safety protocols. Queensland workplace health and safety authorities are investigating the incident. Darling Downs Zoo confirmed in a message on Facebook the lion 'will definitely not be put down or punished in any way'. The animal park reopened to the public on Tuesday. Nationals leader David Littleproud encouraged locals to continue to attend the much-loved zoo. 'I express my sincere condolences to the woman involved in the events that unfolded at Darling Downs Zoo,' Littleproud said. 'This is a horrific incident. It is a tragedy and a shock to not just staff at the zoo, but the entire community.' He added: 'I encourage locals to continue to visit and enjoy the zoo, which will need support from the community during this difficult time.' The zoo, the major venue of its kind in regional Queensland,
