Everyone is going home this month! First up is Hoover the tiger’s flight from Peru to his wonderful forever home at Big Cat Rescue in Florida and then towards the end of the month we hope to lock the flights for our 33 African lions from Peru and Colombia, to take them to their forever home in their native land – the amazing Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary.
The lion flight has been logistically complex, we must fly the 9 lions in northern Colombia to Bogota – Barbie, Bollilo, Bumba, Junior, Easy, Shakira, Iron, Ojiclaro and Zeus will be the first to board the Spirit of Freedom flight at Bogota. We then depart for our first stop – Lima, Peru.
In Lima, we load the 24 lions – the Cusco pride, Rey, Kiara, Scarc, Mahla, Amazonas and Smith, plus Kala; the Huarrals – Leo, Muñeca, Coco, Chino, Rolex, Africa and Kiara2; the Ayachucho brothers, Rey and Simba; the Arequipas, Rapunzel and David; the Huancayo boys – buddies King and Junior and solitary one-eyed Ricardo; the Lima boys – buddies Liso and José and partially sighted darling Joseph. They will travel in their own crates but importantly, families will be together, friends must be next to each other – our loading is complicated!
In their new homes in Africa the families will be bonding together again and the special needs boys, Joseph and Ricardo, will have enclosures with potential hazards removed and maybe some signage assistance!
We cannot thank enough the fantastic people at The Greater Good, who are working so very hard to ensure that all of our lions get sponsored on their flight to freedom – this magnificent group has already got 53,000 miles of the journey sponsored! Already funded for their ticket to freedom are Leo, Rapunzel, Liso, Kiara, David, Simba and Scarc.
Getting each lion sponsored is a huge help for a small group like ADI, as Emoya continues to build the extensive enclosures in Africa – we still have another $150,000 to pay for the final phase, but when finished, these (non-breeding) family prides and groups of friends will be together again and in more space than they have ever known. Just where they should be.
Thank you so much, Greater Good team, and all the remarkable people who have donated to help save these lions!
Jan Creamer 