After last week’s dramatic airlift of lions Goliath and Coralie from France, it has been another wonderful week of watching them adapt to their home at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary, enjoying their trampoline and toys, lounging in the outdoor dens, and basking in the African sunshine.
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This week, rescued French circus lions Goliath and Coralie stepped onto the land of their ancestors and began their new lives at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary, South Africa. They spent the first decade of their lives in a tiny circus cage, now they will enjoy the rest of their lives roaming the land, running at full speed, playing in the grass, and napping under the African skies .
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GREAT NEWS: French circus lions Coralie and Goliath fly to their new life on Tuesday!
Our preparations intensified this week after Qatar Airways Cargo generously offered us free passage on flights to South Africa. Tomorrow, Tim and I fly to Lyon where we will meet ADI veterinarian Dr Peter Caldwell – the three of us will be with the lions throughout the journey.
We will be checking in on Goliath and Coralie at Tonga Terre d’Accueil on Sunday and then on Monday evening at 7.30pm the lions will be sedated and loaded into their travel crates. At 9pm we will set off on a 7-hour drive to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport – as you will know from previous rescues we must be at the airport with the animals 8 hours before the flight. We will be taking off at 4.55pm on Tuesday to fly to Doha arriving around midnight where we will be for four hours. We change aircraft in Doha and depart at 4am on Wednesday morning and finally arrive in Johannesburg at 11.35am.
We expect to get to the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary shortly before sunset and so will let the animals into their house where we can assess them before releasing them for their first steps on African soil on Thursday 22 May.
At the Sanctuary, I am delighted to report that this week we moved Sasha Tiger into her new house and habitat, so she is now much closer to her relatives. Sasha’s old habitat (Stephi) is being converted into the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary Quarantine unit. This already has a two-room house, two feeding camps and a 2.5 acre main habitat. We are currently adding a washroom, storage for tools (only used in quarantine), footbaths, drive through disinfectant baths for vehicles and waste disposal. Big cats arriving at ADIWS will initially be held here in future – Goliath and Coralie will be the first.
We also couldn’t help but notice Goliath’s joy as he bounced on his trampoline at Tonga Terre d’Accueil (see pic)! Our team has been creating our own version using heavy duty conveyor belt rubber. We wouldn’t want him to feel he was missing out!
These two intelligent, beautiful, lions have suffered a lifetime of deprivation and abuse, living in a tiny cage, bare floorboards, behind bars, with no regard given to their wellbeing or physical needs. No freedom of movement, no space to roam. Now, thanks in great part to your generous donations, Coralie and Goliath will soon be on their way to freedom. At the Sanctuary, they will enjoy life and as close as possible to what nature intended.
This rescue marks another landmark in ADI’s global Stop Circus Suffering campaign that has seen over 50 countries and seven states in the USA (the most recent is Washington State) ban the use of wild animals in circuses. It began with us going undercover and exposing the suffering, our campaigns and now we are emptying the cages. ADI supporters like you made this possible.
It is the beginning of the end for wild animals in circuses in France. A full ban on wild animal acts comes into force in 2028, and in the meantime the new regulations phasing out these cruel acts enabled Coralie and Goliath to be removed from a circus following an investigation by our friends at Free Life Association. Coralie and Goliath were taken into care at Tonga Terre d’Accueil, a temporary holding centre for confiscated animals near Lyon and that is where their journey to a new life will begin on Monday.
We hope to be doing live updates during the rescue on different platforms:
Facebook
YouTube
Instagram
TikTok
Please join us as the lions go home.
We are so very grateful to everyone who has helped get us this far, and to Qatar Airways Cargo who previously donated the flights for Ruben and the Kuwait 6 lions (and were the airline we used to fly the 17 tigers and lions from Guatemala). Unfortunately, we are still a long way off our fundraising target to cover the costs of caring for Coralie and Goliath for the next ten years, the preparations and building at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary and all of the costs related to the relocation such as ground transport. I hope that you will consider helping as these two lions, who suffered so much, approach the finish line.
Ten years ago, ADI supporters like you helped one of our most ambitious building projects – a complex of monkey habitats in the Peruvian rainforest at the Pilpintuwasi Wildlife Rescue Center, providing a home for dozens of monkeys, like Pepe and Valerie, saved from horrific abuse. A home in their natural jungle environment.
We worked in sweltering heat and pouring rain and found ways to build around trees and across streams, but it was worth it, as all of the different species of monkeys plus kinkajous and coatimundis bounded from their travel crates. We continue to fund their care and the others who have since joined them.
Recently, I reached out to you about some important repairs to these jungle habitats. Ten years of enthusiastic monkeys swinging through the trees at great speeds, leaping onto houses and landing with force, and testing habitat fencing – plus wear and tear from the rainforest environment – have taken a toll.
Thanks to your generous donations, work is underway, and I wanted to share an update! We purchased all of the materials – rolls of mesh, metal poles, concrete, wire, and wood – and transported them up the river. We are underway! Thank you.
However, there is still much to do, and we are only halfway towards our fundraising target. I hope you will consider a donation today to help us continue taking care of residents rescued from circuses, restaurants, the pet trade, and traffickers.
Help finish renovations: Donate UK £, Euros, Rand | Donate US $, CA $
Saved from lives where they were chained up, alone, and often mutilated by having their teeth broken off, they could never go back to the wild. Our sanctuary habitats in the rainforest gave them a lifeline and a chance to live as close to what nature intended as possible.
Pepe symbolizes so many of these survivors. Chained alone in a circus for eight years until ADI cut him free. We reunited him with his own kind – I’ll never forget that first magical meeting with Valerie when he called out with joy! Then we took him home to the forest. Check out this new video from Geo Beats telling his story. Check out this new video from Geo Beats telling his story.
As Pepe approaches his 20th birthday, what better way to celebrate than by completing the renovations to his cherished home? With your donation, we can give Pepe, and indeed all of the monkeys, a gift that he will truly enjoy for years to come!
I do appreciate that we are also asking for your help to save lions Goliath and Coralie, that is the nature of working on multiple fronts for animals and needing to care for these animals for life. If you can spare something, any help for our monkeys in the forest will be appreciated.
Coralie and Goliath spent their first decade in a tiny, rusting cage on the back of a truck, sleeping on bare boards – prisoners of Cirque Idéal in France.
With your help these doting lions could be starting a new life at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary, South Africa, THIS MONTH!
In circuses, animals are confined in small spaces, in cages the size of a queen-size bed. They would never run, explore, or play. Never have the sun over their head. A brutal life of deprivation, lack of space. They had no access to life on the other side of their bars. Deprived of everything that makes life worth living.
As we know, circuses cannot meet the physical or behavioral needs of wild animals. They are often seen behaving abnormally – rocking, swaying, and pacing, all indicating they are in distress and not coping with their environment. This was the life that Coralie and Goliath were living.
After France passed a law in 2021 phasing out animal circuses, Coralie and Goliath were removed from Cirque Idéal, following an investigation and ADI was asked to provide a forever home. Tim and I immediately said yes! This was a chance for us to return these wonderful lions to the land of their ancestors, in the African sun where they belong.
Coralie and Goliath are currently being kept at a temporary holding center in France as we work to get their flights scheduled. We have secured the permits to move them to their new home, and – thanks to your generous support – we have raised enough money to build their crates, which cost $5,500 / £4,200 each.
But we are still a long way off our fundraising target to cover the costs of a mission like this. We hope to be flying them before the end of the month, will you help make that happen?
Help bring them home: Donate £, Euros, Rand | Donate US/Can $
There’s always a lot to do to prepare for a new arrival. The new house is nearing completion and habitat landscaping is underway with three pools and more for tiger Sasha. Her current habitat will become our main quarantine unit for new arrivals. This quarantine space will provide Coralie and Goliath – and future rescued animals – with about 2.5 acres of space to run and play. These renovations have added to the cost of getting our new lions back home.
Coralie and Goliath have lived together all their lives and are a close, affectionate pair. They may remind you of our dear Tanya and Tarzan, who have enjoyed life at the Sanctuary since 2020, after we rescued them from a circus in Guatemala. Just like these two, Coralie and Goliath will be able to enjoy the rest of their lives free from suffering at the hands of humans.
This rescue will transform the lives of Coralie and Goliath and is an important step towards eliminating all wild animals in French circuses by 2028. ADI is ready to help move this ban along quickly, as we’ve done many times in other countries. This starts by getting Coralie and Goliath to their new home in South Africa. Can you help change their lives forever?
Jan Creamer 