See lions opening their Christmas presents

The two males arrived at Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in November to start their quarantine period before being released into their custom designed enclosure.

The park – one of Europe’s foremost animal sanctuaries – is already famous for caring for the largest collection of parrots and Bengal tigers in the UK.

However, when the CEO Steve Nicholls was told the 10-year-old lions needed sanctuary after spending their early life performing in circuses in France, he couldn’t turn them away.

Now they live in five-star central heated accommodation, which offers multi faceted facilities to include a swimming pool with waterfalls, sand pits, climbing poles and basking areas.

The enclosure also allows for sensory vision for visitors meaning you can get up to just 39 millimetres from this huge creatures behind the bullet proof glass (perfect for photographs) or listen and smell them as they walk past the 300mm protective mesh.

When the Standard went along to see how the lions would be spending Christmas, they had great fun ripping apart their ‘gifts’.

“I think it’s Christmas every day for them at the moment,” said Steve. “We don’t know exactly how they lived when they were with the circus but this is probably the most space they have had to roam in. We are introducing them gradually to things like grass – and they don’t normally like water so we reduced the level in the pools and there isn’t a day when they don’t go in.

“We think they are settling in well. The wounds probably from pushing their head through bars to get their food have now healed and they love playing with boxes.”

White lions are now listed in the IUCNs Red List as becoming highly endangered with only 11 animals left in the wild due to the horrendous hunting laws in Africa,

The enclosure was used when the park got its first tigers and there are now 10 roaming a special enclosure on the park.

“It didn’t take long for the tigers to sense the lions were here,” said Steve. “At night it’s like a scene from Lion King with the lions and tigers ‘calling’ to each other. We feel very privileged.”

Lincolnshire Wildlife Park at Friskney is a part of the Parrot Zoo Trust, charity registration number 1162135: which was founded in the early 90s.

It suffered a blow earlier in June when nearby Wainfleet flooded becaue areas on the park were also under water after the storms.

“We had to close for 10 weeks which was very costly for us because we are a charity and rely on visitors to survive,” said Steve. “We had insurance but unfortunately because it did not qualify as a flood, so far the company had not paid out.

“After a tough year the arrival of the lions and winning Best Visitor Attraction in the Skegness Business Awards were welcome high spots.

“Now we hope we get lots of visitors over the Christmas holidays to boost out funds.”

To find out opening times over Christmas, visit the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park Facebook page.