Two young male lions born at the Denver Zoo, now kicked out of their group, will be transferred to separate other zoos as part of a species survival plan, officials announced this week.
It’s unclear where these two lions – two-year-old Oskar and three-year-old Tatu – will be sent. They’ll be moved early in April to facilities accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums where they’ll be located with females, Denver Zoo officials said in a Facebook posting.
In the wild, male lions typically would leave their birth groups around age two, when they’re big enough to compete with dominant males. Younger males often formed small groups before establishing their own prides. Last year at the Denver Zoo, the elder lion named Tobias, the father of Tatu and Oskar, pushed them out of their family pride. The two “have been enjoying each other’s company,” zoo officials said in their posting, “and now it’s time for them to start their own families.”
Under species survival plans, zoos cooperate to try to save imperiled animal species. Over the past 25 years, about half of the lions in Africa have disappeared due to habitat destruction, poaching, and the loss of prey species. The survival plans are designed to preserve healthy, genetically diverse populations of lions inside zoos.
Most lion populations are declining, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which estimates the remaining population of African lions at less than 25,000 and classifies the species as “vulnerable.” Lions once thrived across much of Africa, and in parts of Europe and Asia. Now lions survive mostly in open grassland and woodland areas conducive to hunting their prey — large herbivores.
