African lioness begins her recovery journey in Kent after being rescued from Ukraine.
Despite feeling nervous about her new surroundings, the sanctuary is doing everything it can to make her feel at home from painting the glass of her enclosure to specially designing its layout to help with her mobility issues.
Finn Macdiarmid has the story...
Finn Macdiarmid has the story...
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00:00The Big Cat Sanctuary in Smaden has seen tigers, leopards and jaguars,
00:04but its enclosures have never held a lion with a journey quite like this one.
00:08Una is an African lioness from Ukraine who travelled 1,400 miles to get to England,
00:14but with any luck she won't be the only one.
00:16Rory, another of the five lions from Kiev, was dropped off in Belgium
00:20and will join his furry friends at the sanctuary when their larger enclosure,
00:24the Lion Rescue Centre, is finished in November.
00:26The charity have been fundraising towards their rescue from the public,
00:29who raised £300,000 of their £500,000 target for the mission,
00:34which went towards the lions' food, treatment and the building of a new rescue centre.
00:39All the donations are massively appreciated and it's helping give these lions a second chance at life
00:44and they really do need it.
00:47They're severely traumatised and the ongoing care and support that they're going to need into the future
00:52is a massive one, so all help is really important for these lionesses and Rory, the male lion.
00:59Una is no ordinary lion.
01:01She was kept in poor conditions, a 3 by 4 metre bare concrete enclosure,
01:06with another lion, who became aggressive when the shelling started,
01:10which gave her a concussion and shell shock.
01:12According to rescuers, she was in very poor health and struggled to balance herself when they found her.
01:17Even now that she's arrived, she hasn't quite taken to her new outdoor enclosure,
01:22preferring to stay inside.
01:24Well, for the foreseeable future, this enclosure behind me will serve as Una's home.
01:28And the keepers here at the Big Cat Animal Sanctuary are doing everything they can to make her feel welcome.
01:33That includes painting on the glass to make sure that she understands that it's a barrier
01:37that people can't just walk through, as back in Ukraine she'd never seen glass before.
01:42She has also never seen grass and remains unstable on her feet,
01:46so it's understandable why she might be nervous.
01:49So because we know that she's historically had some issues with the shell shock and concussion,
01:54we've got things like mounds with gentle slopes that she can take herself up there nicely.
01:58There's no kind of steep drops, as it were.
02:01There is a platform, but she doesn't have access to it,
02:03and we'll just kind of build things up to the point where she's comfortable
02:07and it'll be safe for her to be able to go up there.
02:09Yeah, I think we're really hopeful that she's going to settle nicely.
02:13We'll do a lot of work just taking it really slow at her pace,
02:17build up her confidence, but build up her strength
02:19and hopefully get her to a point where she's like any of the other lions.
02:24Well, hopefully by the time that Rory, Vanda, Amani and Lyra arrive at the sanctuary,
02:28Una will have gotten used to her new surroundings.
02:31Finn McDermid for KMTV in Smarden.