The 9 Odesa Lions

The Lions of War

WOW Ukraine – Warriors of Wildlife have done it again. In a daring mission executed on Tuesday, May 24, a pride of 9 lions were safely rescued from the Bio Park Zoo in Odesa, Ukraine. The 9 lions were heading towards trouble and already experiencing difficulties with no visitors to the park thus no income to buy the much needed fresh meat at their home in the war-torn Black Sea port where supplies of meat were running dangerously low because of the armed conflict with Russia. In addition to this there was also the very real danger of Russian missiles either striking the animals or damaging their enclosures and causing civilians to be in danger from loose predators. Odesa has come under Russian military shelling since the start of the war. The operation was the largest ever big-cat rescue from an active war-zone. WOW Ukraine – Warriors of Wildlife was the driving force responsible for arranging the rescue and repatriation of the lions to a temporary home at Targo Mures Zoo in Romania. I traveled 1000’s of kilometers from South Africa to complete the mission together with award-winning South African radio presenter Daron Mann. Help was enlisted from British animal rescue Breaking The Chains and Founder/Director of World-wide Vets Gemma Campling also accompanied the team into Ukraine in order to sedate the animals prior to travel and to ensure their general well-being and good health. After vet checks and sedation on the day of departure, each lion was individually crated and carefully loaded onto trucks for what was a 30 hour convoy journey through three countries. A major factor in the success of this speedy operation was the CITES paperwork being expedited post-haste and the help of Roxana Ciornei of the Casa lui Patrocle – Animal Rescue organization in Romania. She also facilitated with the processing of all necessary admin documents and liaised on the matter with security officials and the director of Targo Mures Zoo who were kind enough to take in the 9 lions. A huge Thank you also goes to Curelet Andrei who organized the security for our trip and a new route after we were informed the bridge we hoped to use initially had already been bombed. The lions are now acclimatizing to their new surroundings in a huge indoor shelter and they will be allowed access to their open air enclosure which had natural, earth, trees and grass. We are finalizing their final destination and will have them relocated to their new home before 30 September 2022.