Miris­sa De Four

Three young li­ons which ar­rived at the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo last week have at­tract­ed more than 10,000 vis­i­tors.

The traf­fic jam caused by the rush to see the li­ons prompt­ed the po­lice to ask zoo of­fi­cials to close their gates tem­porar­i­ly on Sun­day.

Pres­i­dent of the Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety Gupte Lutch­me­di­al, in a phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said: "We al­most had to close the zoo due to the traf­fic. The po­lice came yes­ter­day (Sun­day) and asked if we could close the zoo."

A long line of traf­fic tailed back from the en­trance to the zoo, and cars were parked for hun­dreds of yards around the Sa­van­nah and up Chan­cel­lor Hill.

Lutch­me­di­al said when he re­fused, the po­lice then asked him to close the car park. He re­ferred the po­lice to the se­cu­ri­ty firm that runs the car park.

"The park was full but peo­ple kept wait­ing to see if peo­ple were leav­ing so they could get a park," he added.

He said peo­ple vis­it­ed the zoo to see the two-and-a-half-year-old broth­ers–Kovu, Mu­fasa and Scar–as well as the 18-foot, 200-pound ana­con­da, Sarp.

But Lutch­me­di­al said while there were long lines to see the snakes, in­clud­ing Sarp, the li­ons, who were in quar­an­tine, drew the big­ger crowd.

He said the younger vis­i­tors were fo­cused on the li­ons, per­haps be­cause they have char­ac­ter names from Dis­ney's an­i­mat­ed movie, The Li­on King.

The young li­ons made the trek from the Abi­lene Zoo in Texas, USA, to Trinidad over three days and joined 16-year-old Sim­ba as part of the zoo's li­on ex­hib­it last Fri­day.

Sim­ba, who was the lone li­on at the zoo, is the great-grand­son of the first two li­ons that came to the zoo in the ear­ly 70s.

On Fri­day, Nir­mal Bip­tah, cu­ra­tor of the zoo, said since then the zoo al­ways had a li­on in res­i­dence.

Lutch­me­di­al said from his ob­ser­va­tions old­er peo­ple want­ed to see the ana­con­da, de­spite be­ing para­noid about snakes.

He said Sarp's pres­ence would help the zoo to ed­u­cate peo­ple about how to ac­cept andtreat snakes.

Lutch­me­di­al said the snake's DNA has been sent for test­ing to de­ter­mine its ori­gins, whether it came from Venezuela or Guyana or was Trinidad-born.

For­mer head zookeep­er John Sey­ja­gat, who has been the cu­ra­tor of the Aus­tralian ex­hibits at the Na­tion­al Aquar­i­um in Bal­ti­more, Mary­land, for the past ten years, ac­com­pa­nied Kovu, Mu­fasa and Scar on their way to their new home.

He is al­so one of the ex­perts at the zoo ex­am­in­ing Sarp, along with Venezue­lan her­petol­o­gist Je­sus Ri­vas.

Sey­ja­gat added: "The ana­con­da is in per­fect con­di­tion.

"It is in good health, good skin con­di­tion, well fed. It is a very good spec­i­men. It is one of the largest ana­con­das in cap­tiv­i­ty in the world."

As to the fu­ture plans for the two biggest at­trac­tions to the zoo in re­cent times, Lutch­me­di­al said on Fri­day:

"We hope to get three fe­males some­time in June. The per­mit­ting arrange­ments are be­ing done now and we will se­lect the best male out of the four to mate."

Lutch­me­di­al said the zoo had plans to sup­ply South Amer­i­can zoos with li­on cubs in the fu­ture.

He said the broth­ers were from a good blood­line and as fifth-gen­er­a­tion li­ons bred in cap­tiv­i­ty, they have adapt­ed well to their new en­vi­ron­ment since their ar­rival.

How­ev­er, there are plans, yet to be con­firmed, to re­lease Sarp back in­to her nat­ur­al habi­tat.