It’s the 10th anniversary of the biggest circus rescue ever undertaken as ADI emptied the circus cages of Peru and Colombia. Today we raided the third circus and Rey Cusco happily living at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary these days (first pic) was saved.

There had been an element of surprise in the first raids but that was gone now and we arrived in the historic Andean town of Cusco with the circus ready to resist. Jan went in with the police and wildlife officials at about 8am and were met by the angry circus owner and their lawyer. We’d learned there was a spider monkey called Pepe in the circus and so Tim and Paul built a crate for him in the street outside.
Officials argued with the circus all day and it was 6pm before we went in to load the animals. It was really tense and a frustrating compromise of half voluntary surrender and half law enforcement. The circus had separated Kiara from cubs (Mahla and Scarc), and were refusing to hand over them, a lion called Smith, and Pepe. Circus workers sat down in front of the ADI trucks. We were told to either take the three lions we had loaded (Kiara, Rey, and Amazonas) or hand them back and the future of the other animals would be decided by a court hearing.

We left dejected and parked up in a truck stop. Jan tried to distract Kiara with toys but she just stared into the distance and wailed for her cubs. The next day we had meetings to try and secure the seizure of the other animals but to no avail. The following morning at 4am we began the 36-hour journey back to the ADI Temporary Rescue Unit near Lima. Saving three lions from hell was an achievement but we were all dispirited about the animals left behind and were determined to get them.

The media had now picked up on the rescue and we were front page news. We were calling for the surrender of all the remaining animals. Then there was a stunning turn of events that would take us back to Cusco to save all of the animals and reunite Kiara with her cubs. We’ll tell you about that in our next anniversary update.

The story of these two raids is told in Animal Planet’s Dodo Heroes series 1 “Jan and Tim’s Greatest Show on Earth” available on Amazon Prime. Amazon US | Amazon UK

Our thanks to Lion Lovers Facebook group who adopted Rey Cusco on the day of his rescued and raised funds to get him home. The road where he lives today at ADIWS is called Lion Lovers Lane.