sally_point_zero | Feb. 25th, 2009

Leone MAL!

Of all the cats I spent least time with the lions as, especially in comparison to the caged leopards and smaller cats, they had kingly grounds of their own in an enclosure that encompassed a lake and a stone shelter (like a little temple ffs).
They also had a large concrete and wire Night Shelter that Victor (Tican) called them into around 4 pm feeding time (a wheelbarrow of cow).
After a week I was entrusted with the job of letting them out first thing in the morning.
*THERE IS NO HEALTH AND SAFETY IN COSTA RICA*
(Its great) however, there were very rainy mornings when the lions did not want to be out of their shelter. Being curious they'd leave it to have a big sniff about, then want back in.
The shelter, like many of the cages etc, was old and rusty in places with bits of patched up wire and dented old flimsy-looking trap doors.
You ascend the shelter inside and open 3 trap doors from above for the 2 lions to go out. Then you sluice the whole place down (!! yikes, you CLOSE all the trap doors again FIRST!!!) with a natural water spout, and brush all the bone shards and teeth etc away into a gunnel with a long wire brush (also scoop up any lion dung, which is surprisingly undigested).
All went ok until poor Jane from Wiltshire arrived to do 2 weeks volunteer work, and said she'd come work with me.
The photos are of that particularly rainy morning.
It was honestly very unusual for BOTH lions to start pounding to get back inside hence making the door buckle inwards rather alarmingly, standing on their hind legs to put their whole weight to it.
In the pics, Jane is standing in the top of the shelter and I am taking photos below.
The lions eventually back off when you turn the hose on them a half dozen times, but to my mind that just makes them angry.