You're reading: Lion cub rescued from war zone, seeks a home

Ksenya Islamova and her partner Mykola Barvynsky from the Nursery of Exotic Animals (NEA) walk the street in an industrial area on the outskirts of Kyiv carrying plastic bags with the raw meat.

“We are going to feed our kitty. He must be missing us,” says Islamova.

The one she calls a “kitty” is actually an 11-month-old lion cub called Simba.

See more of Simba in this photo gallery.

Ukrainian soldiers found Simba in the country’s war-torn eastern region Donbas when he was three months old. The cub was wandering the streets near Luhansk alone.

The servicemen rescued the cub and started looking for a shelter or a zoo to take him.

Islamova was not the first one to be called and offered to take Simba in. Other zoos refused to give shelter to the lion.

“People said that he will grow so fast and eat so much that I won’t be able to support him,” recalls Islamova. “But when we saw him – so tiny, so thin, with his nose scratched – we decided to take the risk.”

Today the almost grown-up Simba weighs almost 85 kilos, but he still welcomes his owners purring and meowing like a cat.

The refugee lion got a nice roomy enclosure with a shed to hide from the rain and heat in the industrial zone near Kyiv. Islamova and Barvynsky had to rehouse Simba here after he leaped over the fence at the NEA shelter and tried to escape.

“Thank God, we caught him before he managed to get to the nearby village,” Islamova says, looking at Barvynsky feeding Simba slabs of veal.

Now Simba eats four kilos of raw meat a day, but in winter his daily ration will be six kilos. For Islamova and Barvynsky, who used to work only with the smaller cats and lizards, it’s getting harder and harder to support the lion.

Islamova has been trying to find Simba a better home in Ukraine’s zoos. But that is not easy at all, according to Ihor Dovgy, the head of the Predator Department of the Kyiv Zoo.

“She (Islamova) offered us to adopt Simba. But we have no place for him,” he says. “Our pride won’t take him in and could even hurt him. Simba needs a spare place to make his own pride with the lionesses of his own age.”

After the Simba’s story went online, the cub got a chance for a new home. Islamova got many offers from Ukrainian zoo shelters, eco parks and private zoos. But the only place she wants Simba to live is Jugomaro Predator Park in South Africa.

Justin Fernandez, the owner of the park, said he would shelter the Ukrainian lion.

“I found out about the lion from a client that has been to my park and told me the sad story about Simba,” Fernandez told Kyiv Post. “I have a big passion for big cats and when I heard his story I thought to myself how can I help and save this beautiful cat. So I’ve been making a lot of phone calls to see who can help me get him to South Africa.”

Unfortunately, transporting a lion from Kyiv to South Africa is very expensive. Islamova is looking into possibilities to find money and send Simba to the new home.

Another obstacle, according to the Kyiv Zoo’s Dovgy, is that Africa doesn’t take animals from around the globe now due to the Ebola and animal aphtha epidemic.

Kyiv Post staff writer Veronika Melkozerova can be reached at [email protected]