Born Free Foundation - Keep Wildlife in the Wild

In Dec 2007, the Foundation was alerted to the tragic story of two 6 week old lion cubs. Marina & Sarnia were abandoned outside a central Bucharest Apartment block and left for dead. One of the cubs had severe enteritis, a potentially fatal condition. They were given temporary shelter by Monica Minciu from the Romanian Animal Welfare Group, APAR, and administered emergency veterinary treatment, whilst Born Free launched an urgent appeal in the British Media for their rescue. In February this year, the Foundation was able to fund their rescue and prepared the cubs for transfer to Guernsey to the GSPCA Animal Shelter, where they have been kept in quarantine, under the supervision of an expert team.

The French Circus lion, Brutus, was an equally perilous and tragic situation. Brutus, a 6 year old male lion, belonged to the defunct Cirque Vitalis. No longer on the road and performing, Brutus spent 4 years caged and shut in an obsolete ‘beast wagon’, in the tiny hamlet of St.Denis d’Authou, in France. Brutus was hidden from view and his health was rapidly deteriorating. Fortunately, the plight of Brutus had reached the attention of French Animal Welfare groups SPA & FAA, and One Voice who co-ordinated efforts with the French Authorities and the Born Free Foundation for Brutus’s release. Finally, In Dec 2007, and despite resistence from the owner, the French gendarmes accompanied the welfare organisations and Brutus was seized and relocated to temporary shelter at the Refuge de L’Arche.

Click for more on Brutus' and the cubs background

The cubs’ journey from Guernsey to the UK was completed in less than 8 hours. On Thursday, they received their final health checks, worming, de-fleeing and routine checks for parasites, before being loaded into their transport crates. This morning the convoy travelled by sea, courtesy of Condor Ferries, from Guernsey to Weymouth and arrived at Heathrow early morning.

Preparations for Brutus’s journey from France began late Thursday afternoon. The Born Free Vet sedated Brutus and undertook a thorough examination, administering an anti-inflammatory drug to ensure he would not stiffen in his crate on the long journey and treating him for external and internal parasites. Once crated, Brutus was given a reversal agent, to bring him round from the Anaesthesia. The experience was a special moment for 2 Thomsonfly cabin crew; who were on site as part of a major ‘in flight’ fund-raising initiative, by their passengers, to fund Brutus’s rescue. In the early hours of Friday morning the entourage, travelling in a Land Rover convoy, reached the port of Cherbourg, before being driving onto a Brittany Ferries cross channel ferry to Poole in Dorset, where they continued their journey to Heathrow.

Alison Hood, Programmes Director was relieved to get to Heathrow - "All three lions arrived safely at Heathrow. The cubs left Guernsey  under the care of vet Jan Wright and arrived in Poole in the early hours of Friday 25th April. They were checked over and left to sleep until Brutus arrived with a separate Born  Free rescue team from France."

"It's hard to believe that this day has finally arrived and it is thanks to the dedication of many people from many different countries that it's been made possible. The plight of Brutus came to our attention two years ago and finally, with the hard work of French groups One Voice, SPA and Fondation Assistance aux Animaux, he was finally confiscated from the circus and is now just 24 hours from his new home in Africa. Our long term sponsors ThompsonFly helped make his journey possible and today said goodbye to him having accompanied him on the first leg of his journey from France."

These are just three lions out of thousands that are born into captivity with little hope of a life beyond the bars. Today they are halfway home.

Tricia Holford,  Born Free’s Rescue Programme Co-ordinator takes up the story:

4.30pm, Friday 25th April – we stand on the tarmac at Heathrow, watching three crates with their precious cargo, being loaded into the hold of a Kenya Airways plane, their flights generously sponsored by the airline.  I wished we could explain to them that their journey would soon be at an end, and the wonderful new life that awaited them, but for the lions themselves, I imagine that they must be already tired and restless and wanting to be out of their close confinement.

Brutus had been restless on the journey from France, and on the last leg of the journey his angry roars at Nairobi airport as he waited for his connecting Kenya Airways flight, attracted horrified stares from the airport staff.  I expected Brutus to be stressed and agitated when he was eventually released from his crate – but he too seemed confident and in control.  He strode out into the bushes, and then, like the late, dear Raffi before him, our first ever lion to be a translocated to Shamwari, he stopped and sniffed for several minutes.  I wondered what rush of sensations he must be experiencing.  Being confined to a circus wagon for the last five years, he had always had a roof over his head and cold, unyielding metal underfoot and – now he had the wide arch of the African sky above him, and grass beneath. And whereas before he could only take about three paces in any direction, now he could keep walking.

It was wonderful seeing this magnificent, powerful animal where he was supposed to be, not framed by bars.  As I stood drinking in the moment, I sent a text message to One Voice, SPA and FAA, our colleagues in France the crews and passengers of Thomsonfly who had worked so hard with us to secure the release of Brutus: Brutus is home!