Stronger Than Lions - 19. The Cape Town Herald, May 3rd, 200–

The Cape Town Herald

MORNING EDITION May 3rd, 200–

NATIONAL —page 6

Jonathan doing well at Kitty Boot Camp

POLOKWANE—Staff at the Predator Reintroduction Project (PRP) in northern Limpopo Province say that Jonathan the white lion—famed for escaping from a Cape zoo last year—looks set to be “a good candidate” for introduction into the wild. Since arriving at the Fitzpatrick Nature Reserve, where the project is based, he has gained weight after a spell of apparent depression at Cape Town’s Peninsula Zoo.

According to Saul Blake, conservationist and co-founder of the PRP, introduction of animals born in activity is an intensive process and carries a high failure rate. ‘Jonathan may end up having to be placed in a smaller facility like the Natal Lion Park,’ he says, ‘but… we owe [him] a chance to roam free in his ancestral homeland.’ Blake describes the PRP at Fitzpatrick a “kitty boot camp” where the young male will be acclimatized to the wild and monitored to see if he can develop the requisite hunting skills in order to survive.

Probably the most famous case of reintroduction is that of Elsa the lioness, who was hand-reared from cubhood by the British-Kenyan author and naturalist Joy Adamson in the 1960s, later recorded in the bestselling book Born Free.

— Seth Rabinowitz, Staff Reporter