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Mujambi watching Yizi very closely

Over the last three weeks the Lions have taken a large and important step closer to being housed together as a small pride.  The daily introductions were progressing well and we were confident the few, brief altercations between them were simply natural hierarchy behaviours seen in many social animals.

On 29th December 2008, Mujambi and Yizi looked very comfortable in each others space…so we left them together overnight.

Checking on them first thing the next morning saw both animals showing no signs of any injuries and behaving normally.  In fact, if anything they were discovered lying closer to each than we had previously seen.

The girls were swapped over later that morning and Mujambi spent the day in with Amani.  Once again, at the end of the day we decided to leave these two together for the night.

With zero injuries the following morning we continued alternating the females daily and leaving them together overnight.  Mujambi has one night a week by himself but that has more to do with letting the girls spend a night together and maintain their relationship than anything else.

All of the lions now seem far more relaxed around each other and as a result the introduction process is starting to pick up speed.

In the coming weeks you can expect to see Mujambi and one of the girls (we will swap them daily) out in the main exhibit together.  After that we’ll likely look at feeding them when he shares space with one of the girls.  Depending on how things are going after that we will look at another big step in the process…how does he go with both girls at once???