They stopped breeding maned wolves several years ago. Around ten years ago, they had around 6-8 individuals, with several grown-up cubs in the enclosure you describe the cheetah being in by the elephants. This enclosure always used to house hog deer until the maned wolves arrived. One of the breeding females was held in what is now the dhole (and was the original cheetah) enclosure, with others kept down in the old hyena area by the lions/wild dogs. They were often very active and visible. I don't know what made Port Lympne effectively retire this species, a few other zoos have done this after successfully breeding them (colchester springs to mind). I think what has happened is that for several years now they have had maybe one aged animal that has survived the others and remained at the park, while the cubs were obviously moved on at some point.
I have read on other threads that persian and north chinese leopards have been appearing at Howletts. Howletts held amur leopards before any other UK zoo, except possibly cricket st thomas, and had african spotted leopards in that weird white concrete cage behind the mansion near some of the gibbons until they died out in the late 90s. Their black panthers (a pair at each park) were held in the wood behind the dhole (at howletts) and in the cage before the indian tigers (at port lypme) until they died of old age.
