Port Lympne Wild Animal Park Port lympne: cats

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leiclad20

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
does anyone know how many individual cats of each specie there are at port lympne? With the construction of the new pallas cat exhibits, have they bought in extra stock or rehoused existing ones? how many are there now at the park?

also, the website says they currently hold 12 barbary lions but i only recall seeing 8 on my last visit - is this correct?

cheers
 
leiclad20 said:
also, the website says they currently hold 12 barbary lions but i only recall seeing 8 on my last visit - is this correct?
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Their website 'tallies' are sometimes well out of date.

From memory there are;

Suliman, Samira & Savanah(female cub) in the bottom enclosure.

Milo- male in Pine tree area, now with
Saffiya?- crippled female(his older sister)
A new female is arriving for him soon I believe.

Additional pair- Jabir & a female (name starts with L or T.)

That's only seven currently by my count.:confused:

In recent years they have lost Kabir(to Longleat) old females Jade(died?) Juma(died?) and the male Moonlight who was sent to Hanover.
 
Thanks pertinax, do u know how the 2 lions in the pine area and the other 2 by the snow leopard cage/start of safari tour are all related? im assuming that merging them into a large group is not possible because theyre closely related. If new lions are bought into the park, does anyone know if the plan is to restart a breeding group again?

when i last visited howletts there was one bengal/indian tiger over byt he lynx and another 2 bengal/indians at the bottom of port lympne next to the lions. Are these the only hybrid tigers remaining left in the AF parks now? will the be kept there until they die or sent away?
 
leiclad20 said:
Thanks pertinax, do u know how the 2 lions in the pine area and the other 2 by the snow leopard cage/start of safari tour are all related? im assuming that merging them into a large group is not possible because theyre closely related. If new lions are bought into the park, does anyone know if the plan is to restart a breeding group again?
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The two in the Pine area are brother(milo) and older sister(Saffiya- the crippled female). Milo and the young female Savanah, who is still(?) in with her parents in the bottom area are from the same litter(plus Moonlight which went to Hanover) They comprised the last recent litter reared there.

I've never been sure about Jabir and his female. I suspect both were born there in previous litters so probably related to the others too.

I think the plan is to bring in a new (unrelated) female from Madrid for the male Milo, and resume breeding with them. Its a bit contradictory as I believe Milo's father Suliman at PortLympne was castrated as they wanted no more cubs from him as this line had become overepresented in the zoo population. Yet it seems they may now breed again from his son Milo (as presumably will Hanover with his litter brother).
 
Are there still lions in the small enclosure at the top of the hill by the old honey badger pit? Ie the compound just above the open-air snow leopard enclosure.
 
johnstoni. said:
Are there still lions in the small enclosure at the top of the hill by the old honey badger pit? Ie the compound just above the open-air snow leopard enclosure.
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I believe the crippled female 'Saffiya' was living there for a while but was recently moved in with the male Milo(her brother) to prevent him pacing. So for now possibly not.
 
Thanks, that would make sense, as the fencing for that compound didn't look especially high enough for lions.
 
hantslad i think the maned wolves were kept in the enclosure adjacent to the elephants and opposite the babirusa/red river hog enclosure. Saffiya was at one point in the enclosure at the far top of the park next to the old honey badger bit (and behind the main snow leopard pen). When u were a keeper was this also used for maned wolves too? The enclosure probably is lion proof as it was once used for snow leopards too i believe. And if it isnt, who cares, saffiya was badly lame anyway!

So if an unrelated female is being bought in for milo to breed with, will they+saffiya form the new lion group for the park? will their parents be kept also or sent away? Im curiosu to know whther the other 2 lions in the pen at the start of the african experience ride are related and whether they could be mingled in too.

Does anyone know how many ocelots/margays/pallas cats their are at the parks now?
 
Re. Maned Wolfs, I am talking of around 86 to 87 when they where kept nex to the Ratel enclosure. The enclosure you on about, ( may be wrong in those days housed 2 male,sub species of Hog Deer, cannot rember there name.
 
Tim May said:
I think you're referring to Calamian deer Axis calamianensis
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Thanks Tim, thats the one,s. There were also more of these deer, kept off show at The Chilham farm site, nr to Chilham Castle, this was also where the Water Buff,s spent the winter months, was at times called the Chilham rare animal breeding centre.
 
I was aware the maned wolves really started breeding well towards the end of the 80s, I would not be surprised if at times this species was held in the top enclosure adjacent to the snow leopards. Maned wolves were also kept at various points in the right-hand (now demolished) wolf enclosure by the park entrance, the carnivore enclosure along the top of the rhino paddocks (used to hold dhole), as well as the hyena enclosures at the bottom of the park.

As for the deer, I was only aware of Calamian deer at Howletts, kept in a small (now demolished) paddock near the bush dogs. They shared with parma wallabies. I don't believe they thrived particularly well and didn't last, although perhaps as Hantslad says, this is incoreect, and surplus males were housed at PL (with the hog deer), and at Chilham Farm?

Sorry to go a little off-topic, does anyone know whether there was much breeding with the Calamian deer?
 
cyrildacat said:
Lions:

Suliman, Saffia, Savanahh and 2 cubs
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Interesting- so the 'breeding' pair have had another litter since the Milo/Moonlight/Savanah one? Presumably before Suliman was castrated(or soon after) Do you know these cubs names/sexes?

I think I've got Samira/Saffia the wrong way around in my above posts.:(
 
are the 2 cubs savannah's (the daughter is suliman and saffiya) cubs then? suliman was castrated a while ago i believe.

I think port lympne really needs to ascertain whether these lions are true barbary or just african savannah lions. My gut feeling (as a medical doctor with a good genetic background) is that even if they were barbary, the genetic pool would be so contrained given the few number of individuals likely to remain that the ability for them to produce viable, fertile offspring is substantially reduced. If they clarify that they are all just african, it would make it easier to source indivuduals to form a big breeeding group like longleat has. Such a group would be sure to pull crowds in (and therefore $$)
 
leiclad20 said:
are the 2 cubs savannah's (the daughter is suliman and saffiya) cubs then? suliman was castrated a while ago i believe.
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Afaik the only other males at PL are her brothers- Milo and Jabir(if he's a brother too.) I had not heard of any more cubs since the litter of 3 that Savanah was part of(with males Milo & Moonlight).

I think if these were shown to be 'ordinary' generic Lions then PL would not feel any strong point in keeping them- unless they then moved them into their 'African experience' area as part of a bigger display.
 
the aspinall trust has always been focussed on breeding rare species within its usual remit, and they did get rid of coati recently as they weren't rare enough!

however that said, lions are a big crowd puller and wingham wildlife park up the road are trying to acquire to battered circus lions. Look how many visitors YWP got when they rescused the (romanian?) pride, so i will regrettfully have to disagree with you on that one pertinax, my feelings are that the tourist draw of having lions will keep them in the aspinall parks regardless of subspecie for many years to come!
 
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