Who doesn’t want more lions? I’d like to have a big cat right now, chilling with me on the couch while I drink a beer and watch TV, snuggling and wrestling around with me. I could ride on its back, and we could travel across great plains or at least to the corner store, any adventure we wanted to have would be ours for the taking. We’d be like Calvin and Hobbes, except my vocabulary isn’t as strong as Calvin’s and my best friend is a lion instead of a talking tiger. It would be great; if lions weren’t prone to maul people who try to hug them, than they would make awesome pets. But they do do that, so we keep them in zoos to protect us from them and vice-versa. Zoos are also the reason why people can see lions in American and all around the world as well instead of only in Africa.
In zoos there is always some problem with breeding. Like people, when zoo animals are going to have a baby, the have to try to make one, see doctors, take vitamins, the whole sha-bang-a-bang. They left the times of unwanted teen pregnancy back in the wild. So it’s a true blessing when a birth takes place, especially when it’s from a low population animal, such is the lion.
Well, Tajiri did her part in upping the population of lions, she gave birth. The event took place on June 26. The real treat is that she gave birth to four cubs. That’s quite the adventure in motherhood.
A lioness hasn’t given birth in the Philadelphia zoo since 1996. I’d say they were overdue.
It just so happens that the cubs were born during the zoo’s year of the big cat, which started in May. And what a year it will be, as the four young cubs begin their adventure into life. It will still be a few months before they travel outside their cave hidden from public viewing, so visitors of the zoo will have to wait a little longer to see the adorable little fuzzballs.
As far as an adventure at a zoo goes, lions are a pretty cool part. And baby lions, I imagine people will be coming from all around the world to see that.
