Today I have some items on lions to present, having seen the item below, from British Wildlife, a day or two ago. I was given several years' worth of BBC Wildlife Magazine recently and have been laboriously looking through them to see if I could find anything blog-worthy and the item below is a fruit of this research. I also found the two older items from the Guardian.
Police stalk lion abandoned on edge of moor
“A hungry and bedraggled lion was loose on the edge of Dartmoor last night after it spent the day being stalked by police officers and marksmen.
The big cat was spotted yesterday morning by a man who was driving along a country lane in the Wrangaton area of south Devon.He immediately alerted police who launched a search and warned people to stay indoors. A six-inch paw print was found and big cat experts confirmed it was a lion`s. By mid afternoon,two further sightings had been reported within a four mile radius and more than 20 officers were involved in the the search,including two marksmen and dog handlers. …Police have no idea how it reached the area or where it came from. Nearby wildlife parks and zoos said they had no missing lions. Sargeant Alan Mobbs, of Devon and Cornwall police, said: “We believe it has not eaten for two or three weeks and it is looking emaciated because lionesses tend to do all the hunting.”….The lion was spotted by Paul Gourley as he was driving home after dropping his children off at school. “ I saw something running towards me – I immediately saw that it was a lion with a mane,” he said.” The mane was bloodied and it looked in a pretty poor state.” …Robin Godbeer, a keeper from the Dartmoor Wildlife Park at Sparkwell, took a cast of the paw print and identified it. “If it is cold and hungary it is going to look for food,but for most of the big cats,humans are last on the list,” he said. The wildlife park`s owner, Ellis Daw, said it was unlikely to attack people . “ I feel sorry for it, because somebody, somewhere has slipped up and released it. “We know none of the zoos are missing a lion, so we can only assume it has escaped from a circus or is an illegal pet which has escaped or been abandoned.” (1)
Now follows a charming story of an adoption of an baby oryx by a lioness, one of my favourite Fortean zoological oddities:
Flaw of the jungle. Confused lioness adopts baby oryx
“ This lioness baffled wildlife experts in Kenya and confounded the law of the jungle by rearing a baby oryx.The lioness began looking after the oryx 16 days ago at Samburu park, northern Kenya; the lioness not only lay with the oryx, but groomed it, guarded and even allowed the calf`s mother back to suckle it. Local wildlife expert Vincent Kapeen said the lioness was probably confused by the oryx`s fawn coat, similar to that of a newborn lion. It might also have been lonely after it became separated from its pride. Nature was restored to its equilibrium when a more traditionally minded male attacked and ate the oryx, despite the lioness`s best efforts in warding it off. (2)
The BBC Wildlife article of October 2006 was about the folklore of white lions.
Folklore: A Holy Symbol. For centuries, stories of white lions have been passed down from one generation to the next Throughout the African continent.
The white lion is embedded in story-telling cultures from around the River Nile in Egypt to Zululand`s Valley of a Thousand Hills in South Africa. In tales from both the east of Africa in Somalia and the west in Senegal, they appear as characters with magical powers, fabulous creatures that are revered almost as gods.
It`s probably in Timbvati in South Africa that white lions have had most influence on indigenous folklore. During the reign of Queen Numbi around 400 years ago, white lions were, according to tradition, sighted here for the first time.
Their appearance was the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy. High priests and elders of the time believed these lions to be holy messengers – in feline form – sent down from the gods. From then on, lions with coats of pure white became an enduring symbol of goodness and enlightenment.
The stuff of myth, white lions were thought to appear only once every century when, as angelic white beasts of the bush, they were timely reminders of the intrinsic goodness to be found in the world. (3)
1. H.Carter Police stalk lion abandoned on edge of moor. The Guardian. November 20th 1998
2. J.Astill Flaw of the jungle. Confused lioness adopts baby oryx. The Guardian January 8th 2002
3. BBC Wildlife Magazine October 2006
Bob Marley Iron Lion Zion
I`m on the rock and then I check a stock
I have to run like a fugitive to save the life I live
I`m gonna be Iron like a Lion in Zion
Iron Lion Zion
I`m on the run but I ain`t got no gun
See they want to be the star
So they fighting tribal war
And they saying Iron like a Lion in Zion
Iron like a Lion in Zion
Iron Lion Zion
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