Clarence
I have hundreds of animal photos but hardly post any here, but I will make an exception for this one because there is a story. Obviously zoos/wild animal parks are controversial these days, but I’m sure Clarence here is more than happy to live in Wingham Wildlife Park in Kent. He was one of two male lions that came to live at Wingham Wildlife Park in 2011. The brothers were rescued from a French circus where they were very badly treated. Clarence had a very obvious scar on his hip and one eye darker than the other from a blunt force trauma to the head which caused his inner eyelid to permanently close. These were just some of the scars that you could see, but there were invisible scars that the Park had to overcome. When the lions first arrived they didn’t even want to explore the outside of their new home having always lived in a tiny cage and not felt the grass under their own four paws. It took a lot of patience and encouragement from the WWP team to get them settled in their new home.
Clarence and his brother Brutus lived together in a roomy enclosure on the far side of the Park’s 1 acre lake for around 10 years but sadly Brutus passed away in November 2022 due to lung cancer. Clarence is now an elderly lion who has lived his entire life with his brother, Brutus and it would be ill advised to rush into putting another lion in with him, so at the moment the Park is spoiling him with attention, enrichment and treats, and monitoring the situation.
Clarence
I have hundreds of animal photos but hardly post any here, but I will make an exception for this one because there is a story. Obviously zoos/wild animal parks are controversial these days, but I’m sure Clarence here is more than happy to live in Wingham Wildlife Park in Kent. He was one of two male lions that came to live at Wingham Wildlife Park in 2011. The brothers were rescued from a French circus where they were very badly treated. Clarence had a very obvious scar on his hip and one eye darker than the other from a blunt force trauma to the head which caused his inner eyelid to permanently close. These were just some of the scars that you could see, but there were invisible scars that the Park had to overcome. When the lions first arrived they didn’t even want to explore the outside of their new home having always lived in a tiny cage and not felt the grass under their own four paws. It took a lot of patience and encouragement from the WWP team to get them settled in their new home.
Clarence and his brother Brutus lived together in a roomy enclosure on the far side of the Park’s 1 acre lake for around 10 years but sadly Brutus passed away in November 2022 due to lung cancer. Clarence is now an elderly lion who has lived his entire life with his brother, Brutus and it would be ill advised to rush into putting another lion in with him, so at the moment the Park is spoiling him with attention, enrichment and treats, and monitoring the situation.