ONE of Britain's most popular safari parks has destroyed five of its lions because they had serious genetic defects caused by inbreeding.
Longleat Safari Park, near Warminster, Wiltshire, said it had no choice but to put down lioness Louisa and her cubs because they displayed "odd aggressive behaviour".
A sixth lion was destroyed on "welfare grounds" after being injured when he was attacked by his brother and Louisa last month.
News of the decision to put down the lions caused fury on Longleat's Facebook page. Gordon Smith wrote: "This seems on the surface a shameful decision."
Longleat said Louisa's behaviour was due to "poorly managed genetic history prior to her arrival" in 2011 aged 18 months and that she and the cubs showed signs of neurological problems.
The park said it would have been irresponsible to move the animals elsewhere.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article