Simba’s short life has been full of suffering.
In September 2020, when he was just weeks’ old, the lion cub was found dumped in a cardboard box in a garage near Moscow.
Terrified and starving, he was missing most of his fur, and was so weak he could barely stand – another innocent victim of the cruel wildlife trade.
Thankfully, he was taken in by Wild Nature Hospital in Russia where staff nursed him back to health. But they could not give him lifetime care.
Organisation Born Free took Simba to Natuurhulpcentrum, in Belgium, a centre that provided a halfway house. But giving specialist care and creating a spacious enclosure for a rapidly growing lion meant he has now been moved to the Animanatura Wildlife Sanctuary in Tuscany, Italy.
This forever home already cares for Elsa the lioness and Sandro the tiger, both looked after using Born Free funding.
A private donor provided the cash to transport the lion but an urgent appeal has been launched to help to build his spacious, permanent home and provide lifetime and veterinary care.
Dr Andrea Donaldson, acting head of rescue and care at the Born Free Foundation, said: “It is amazing to know Simba will wake up every morning with the warmth of the sun on his face in an enclosure that encourages him to roam and display natural behaviours.
“I find it extraordinary that in 2022, cruelty towards wild animals is still rife.”
The illegal wildlife trade is the fourth largest illegal trade behind drugs, people smuggling and counterfeiting, worth around £15billion a year.
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It has brought some animals to the verge of extinction.
Releasing Simba into the wild is sadly not an option. To help him have the closest alternative to the real thing, see bornfree.org.uk/build-simba-a-home
