Of course, Tanya and Tarzan had a nice lie in! The loving lions, rescued from a circus in Guatemala, were dozing, hugging each other, in their house at sunrise, before wandering out to their main habitat at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary, South Africa.

The lion-hearted sweethearts comforted and protected each other through seven hellish years in a circus cage. Tarzan’s lip was torn from his face after a fight with a tiger in the circus and Tanya bears the scars of defending him. Safe at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary, they still sleep cuddled up together, live at their own very gentle pace, and Tarzan still kisses Tanya goodnight.

No one can forget the sight of Sasha in her bare circus cage in Guatemala, her foot held up in pain. A toe had been crushed in a brutal ‘declawing’ operation and cancer spread up her leg. After her rescue, at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary, South Africa, she underwent groundbreaking surgery removing diseased bone and replacing it with a titanium implant. She is no longer in pain but after almost a decade of pain, in the circus, the tendons in her leg had shortened and she still holds the leg aloft. So we need to give her physiotherapy, exercising, stretching and using her leg by playing with balls, catnip boxes, melons, and logs. The indomitable Sasha is a testament to what is possible with your support.

You can keep Sasha and our other rescued animals playing with Oba, the limited-edition lion toy. Our friends at The Elephant Project, have created a limited-edition stuffed lion named Oba (meaning ‘king ruler’ in West Africa) with 100% of net proceeds from sales going to ADI and other organizations.

Big developments at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary as we start bringing together some key groups of animals: Easy with David, sisters Kiara2 and Africa with brother Rolex, and Iron with Bumba. Several of these animals have been sharing territory for some time, but we will be placing all (except Easy and David) in new, neutral territory, to start their new lives together. As part of this, one of our established pairs, Leo and Muñeca (rescued by ADI from a circus in Peru in 2014), have moved next door to Augie Habitat, from their Abbey Habitat. This is a lovely, very similar habitat to Abbey, and should give the pair an interesting change of scenery as they have always enjoyed exploring. It had been a while since Leo and Muñeca were in their travel crates, so we had three days of crate familiarization, to allow them to wander freely in and out of their crates, and have their meals in the crates. Once they were comfortable, we closed the crates and moved them to Augie Habitat where they first got oriented in the feeding camp and house.

Chino and Coco, two lions rescued from a circus in Peru by ADI, enjoying the morning sunshine at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary South Africa. The boys share the 2.5 acre Kornberg Habitat and anyone joining the ADIWS volunteer programme will almost certainly go to sleep and wake up to their roars and open their curtains in the morning to see the boys watching for the arrival of their breakfast. The launch of our sanctuary volunteer scheme was halted by the pandemic but we hope to have it up and running as soon as possible.

Want to know what it takes to rescue animals like Chino and Coco? Check out rescue documentary Lion Ark which is available to stream for the first time on EarthStream.app. As a special promotion, for every subscription made though this link, $30 (normally $20) will go to ADI and directly benefit our rescued animals. Click here to subscribe and tune in.