African Lions - Paradise Valley Springs

African Lion Pride - Paradise Valley Springs, July 2007.

Paradise Valley is a small wildlife park, with mostly natives, domestics and feral species, lions are the only true exotics here. The lion enclosure is a tall mesh fence surrounding a circle of land, with hills, rocks, grass, logs and heaps of old bones. You can walk right around the entire enclosure, which includes views into the concrete-block lion house.

There are currently nine lions at the park.

And all together apparently, based on this photo. That is a nice sized lion pride!

It is a good size, but I think there is a lot of fighting, all the animals have battlescars!

I'm not sure how many the park had in 2007 when this photo was taken, there were 2 cubs kept seperately, and I don't know if all the adults are in this photo. The numbers are quite variable I think, as the park does a lot of breeding and sending away.

The lions at this time were Max (2000) and Zac (2001); the lionesses were Suzy (1986), Honey (1988), Jenny (1990), Ryo (1995), Zalika (2001) and Luca (2004). The two cubs were Ben (2007) and Hana (2007). The only remaining lions from these ten are Luca and Hana.