THE PRIDE OF KENT

After rescuing five lions from war-torn Ukraine, a British Big Cat sanctuary is planning to become a world leader in the species' survival and conservation

- EMILY WRIGHT

SITTING still in the Kent sunshine with the grass beneath her paws, African lion Yuna is a picture of contentment. It's hard to imagine the three-year-old big cat in her former hellish life — caged in a 3m by 4m concrete enclosure in Kyiv, Ukraine, terrified by the blasts of falling shrapnel and wailing air-raid sirens, and facing a future of illegal breeding.

But this was Yuna’s miserable existence until she was rescued by the brave team at Big Cat Sanctuary in Ashford 18 months ago. The globally renowned centre, run by managing director Cam Whitnall and his team, is dedicated to rescuing and rehoming wild cats... even if that means driving a van into a war zone to reach them.

Watching Yuna stretched out peacefully in the open air more than justifies the dangerous operation, Cam says.

"She didn’t even know what rain was," he smiles sadly.

"After arriving here, she would just sit outside in the rain — cats aren't supposed to like it!

"It was a beautiful moment to be able to provide just the basics of what a lion would experience."

Sadly, Yuna’s experience is all too common. The illegal wildlife trade is now the world’s fourth-largest trafficking industry — behind arms, drugs and humans — and worth an estimated £15billion a year.

Organised criminal networks, some of whom work under the guise of legal breeding programmes, are responsible for much of the cruel transactions but private ownership has also created a crisis.

In Yuna’s case, her former owner abandoned her some time after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Military volunteers discovered her living in squalid conditions inside a house with a young male lion in February 2023. Both were evacuated to Wild Animals Rescue in Kyiv, run by Natalia Popova, where they began recuperation.

But during a large-scale Russian missile attack several months later, debris fell just 300m from Yuna’s enclosure, leaving her with concussion and a loss of coordination.