FAQ

All the lions, tigers and cheetah seen here in Mauritius have been abandoned from their captive bred family units in South Africa. The cubs are often abandoned by their mothers for many reasons, one being the sheer fact of having given birth for the first time and simply not knowing what is going on!

Hence the cubs are often bitten, left to die or we have even had an instance when the mother has actually picked up the cubs one by one and dropped them in the water trough!

That is why it is so fortunate that within a captive breeding unit the parents are monitored from the day of conception, the gestation through to the birth of the cubs and then if necessary to take the cubs away from the mother in the case of her abandoning them.

They all flew to Mauritius between 2007 and 2011.

All the lions handled by Safari Adventures are in contact with their trainers and rangers on a daily basis and therefore are automatically more approachable. We work with them on an encouragement / reward basis only, when you come and walk or interact you will actually see the lions are enjoying themselves and doing what they only do naturally in the wild.

When our lions retire from walking and interacting, they go on to spend their days in our 12 acre drive thru enclosures, here you have the chance to go out and see them in our secure 4x4 safari vehicles. Although they no longer have a direct physical interaction with visitors we maintain the strong bonds and relationships that we (staff and keepers) have built over the years with them by working and interacting amongst them daily.

They eat lots of chicken, red meat and these lions are lucky enough to also have Tuna fish. They eat between 30 kg of meat per week.

We never feed the lions at the same time each day as we find this is when animals start to pace their enclosures; we believe it encourages boredom to do everything the same all the time. We have implemented enrichment activities and random feeding times which keeps the animals entertained.

All of our oldest big cats come from captivity in Zimbabwe and were imported through CITIES and veterinary permits. We have also had lions and tigers born here in Mauritius which we are proud of because it is an indication that our animals are healthy and happy.