Lions at Minnesota Zoo

While reading Allen Nyhius's Zoo Book from 1994, I was surprised to see that Asian lions used to be exhibited on Northern Trail. This shocked me since I was pretty sure the zoo never exhibited lions. When did the zoo stop exhibiting lions and why? How good was their exhibit?

 

From what I've read the lions were in one of the tiger exhibits. They were putative Asian lions. The AZA shut down their Asian lion SSP in the mid 1980s when they found out they were hybrids.

 

The zoos master-plan calls for lions returning for a new African section.

http://mnzoo.org/MasterPlan/MasterPlan.pdf

 

The lions were exhibited in one of the large current tiger exhibits where the path is above the exhibit.

 

Do you have any idea when the lions left?

 

I visited probably around 1998 or 99 and the lions were already gone by then.

 

I don't recall exactly when the exhibit closed, but it seems they were already gone in the early 90s.
If I recall, it wasn't really announced, they just were not there anymore.
It was not that great of an exhibit, poor visibility to the lions.
Como Park Zoo in St Paul has always and still has African Lions.