NAIROBI, (Kenya): The managers of a wildlife park in Rwanda say seven lions transported from South Africa have been released into the park after weeks of quarantine, another step in a plan to restore the country’s lion population after it was wiped out following Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
Sarah Hall, tourism and marketing manager for Akagera National Park, said Tuesday that the lions left an enclosure a day earlier and were being monitored through their satellite collars. She says the five lionesses had been walking together along a road while the two males were “more cautious” and staying closer to the enclosure.
The park is managed by African Parks, a Johannesburg-based group. Cattle herders poisoned Rwanda’s last lions about 15 years ago after the park was left unmanaged in the genocide’s wake. -AP