And if I recall right from Snowleopard's thread this summer, the exhibit is still marked as holding Asiatic Lions. Which is really nice of course.
Conservation set aside for a moment, I always have a thing for African Lions. I guess it is the mane that does it for me; which normally doesn't get too grand on Asiatic males.
Audubon Zoo's last lion died a couple of years ago and this exhibit (along with a few others) has been demolished to make way for the new Asian elephant exhibit.
There are future plans to completely overhaul the African Savanna which will include a new lion exhibit but this isn't likely to happen for several years.
No, because the ones they thought were asian lions turned out to be asian african crossbreeds, so they were allowed to die out. Even the ones that were definitely african were ceased from breeding (within the AZA) due to unkown heritage. The AZA decided to import all new founders, which is what they have done very recently. I am not positive, but I think all of the new founders are from South Africa.
There is a section on this topic in the book Sailing With Noah by st louis zoo director Jeffrey Bonner. He was director of Indianapolis Zoo at the time and said if they were going to bring in founders to start an SSP, they should import asian lions. But he was overruled and african it is. Thankfully, there appears to be a good asian lion program in Europe.
I know this comment was made a couple years back, but do you know if American zoos are still breeding within a SA lion gene pool? I only ask because a couple of zoos have been acquiring lions from the Middle East within the past year or so.
I have not heard of any imports from the middle east. Do you know which facilities they went to? If they are not part of AZA then anything is possible. It is only the AZA lion SSP that is using South African lions.
