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How did the lions land in Mauritius?
All the Lions and Cheetahs seen here in Mauritius have been abandoned from their captive bred family units in South Africa. The cubs are often abandoned by their mothers for many reasons one being the shear fact of having given birth for the first time and simply not knowing what is going on!
Hence the cubs are often bitten, left to die or we have even had an instance when the mother has actually picked up the cubs one by one and dropped them in the water trough!
That is why it is so fortunate that within a captive breeding unit the parents are monitored from the day of conception, the gestation through to the birth of the cubs and then if necessary to take the cubs away from the mother in the case of her abandoning them.
They all flew to Mauritius on the 1st of March
2007.
Are the lions trained?
All the lions handled by Safari Adventures are hand raised and therefore automatically more approachable. We work with them on an encouragement / reward basis only, when you come and walk or interact you will actually see the lions are enjoying themselves and doing what they only do naturally in the wild.
What will you do with them when they are big?
The 6 lions here with us now will go into a captive breeding unit right here in Mauritius and go on to produce the first "Pride" within Mauritius. All three brothers and sisters units have been specifically chosen so as there will be no chance of inter-breeding.
What do they eat, how often do you feed them and how much do they eat?
They eat lots of chicken, red meat and these lions are lucky enough to also have Tuna fish. At this stage of their young lives they eat every day an amount of 2 kilograms each. Later on in their lives they will eat 5 - 7 kilograms every other day, which is more in keeping with their natural diet.
We never feed the lions at the same time each day as we find this is when animals start to pace their enclosures; we believe it encourages boredom to do everything the same all the time. In the hunting season here in Mauritius they are fortunate to get lots of fresh fallow deer meat.
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