NEW Zoo of Brown County, WI

Springtime in the Lion's Den

Springtime – when a young male lion’s fancy turns to thoughts of love! After a long introduction period, Shambe is living the good life as the most popular guy in town in the African Lion exhibit.

Shambe, our 3 year old male lion arrived here from the Lee Richardson Zoo in Kansas (where he was born and raised) on 12/21/07. After about a month in quarantine, he was moved into the lion building and where he could begin to make friends with our 4 year old resident females. Ajia, who had previously been trying to impress the granite statue of long time NEW Zoo resident Kitty (with NO success!) was definitely interested in the new guy - but a bit apprehensive at first. After a week of closely supervised visits, the two became good friends and began spending a portion of each day together. Etana, on the other hand, is not so easy to impress and found the new roommate situation quite annoying. Fortunately, Shambe is a very easy going guy and did everything he could to obey all the rules and behave appropriately. Eventually, he managed to win her over and all three lions are now romping and playing together in the exhibit!

The NEW Zoo is a participant in the African Lion Species Survival Plan – or SSP. SSPs act as a “dating service” for various endangered species to ensure the best possible genetic matches to ensure the survival of the species. All of the NEW Zoo lions are genetically valuable so the more cubs they can produce, the better for the species! Hopefully, before long we will have an entire pride of lions! If you aren’t able to come and visit soon, make sure you check out the latest in the social lives of the lions on the NEW Zoo web cam.

Published: April 3rd, 2008