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.
Jan Creamer 