BEIRUT — A few hours before dawn, a marina in Beirut’s Dubaiye neighborhood was deserted except for a few men hoisting a metal cage with the words “Live Lion” on it onto a yacht. The passenger was a baby who was rescued by a Lebanese animal rights group after being used as a living prop in a TikTok video.
The Animals Lebanon group, joined by NPR, formed a small convoy along the coast and spaced them widely apart to avoid any perceived threat from Israeli drones flying overhead. As the sun began to rise, a plume of smoke hung over the city from Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern outskirts.
Thursday’s boat trip to Cyprus was the first part of a journey to deliver the animal to a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa.
After a flight to Dubai and then Cape Town, Animals Lebanon co-founder Jason Meyer and the lion cub arrived at the Drakenstein Lion Park Sanctuary on Friday. The video sent in shows the animal, named Sarah, staring at the two lions who will become new family members on the other side of the wired enclosure. There is.
Animals Lebanon said the lion cub was the fifth lion rescued and transported from Lebanon since fighting broke out between the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Israel last year. The fighting has escalated into an all-out war since Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September. Since Animals Lebanon was founded in 2008, we have rescued 25 lions, tigers and other big cats from Lebanon and transported them to sanctuaries around the world.
By September, the group was able to fly the animals. But Meyer said he was later told by Middle East Airlines, the only airline still flying in and out of Lebanon, that they no longer transport animals. The airline declined to comment on its policy.
Meyer, an American who grew up in Michigan, is acutely aware that some people think it is frivolous to focus on rescuing animals because the human toll as a result of the ongoing war is so high.
“This is the expertise we have, and at the same time we are helping animals, we are also directly helping people,” says Beirut, a Lebanese co-founder who shares this with his wife. he said in an interview at his apartment.
The lion has been staying in the couple’s spare bedroom in their small apartment in downtown Beirut since September while Meyer arranges a way to get him out of the country.
In its daily work, the organization rescues and cares for pets left behind when panicked owners flee Israeli airstrikes. Their headquarters in central Beirut is filled with more than 200 cats, dogs and birds from people displaced by the year-long conflict.
“We’ve had over 1,000 calls since the end of September, and no dog or cat answered the phone,” Meyer said. “These are the people who need our help. So by helping animals, we are helping the community.”
About one million people have been displaced by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, hundreds of thousands of whom are staying in schools and shelters. He said many pet owners come here whenever they can to see their pets.
Animals Lebanon rescued a four-month-old lion from a social media influencer who the organization claims was using the lion as a prop in a TikTok video.
“That wasn’t a lion’s life,” says Maggie Shaarawy, the group’s co-founder and the lion’s primary caretaker. “When she came, she had scars all over her face and ringworm all over her body, so it took a lot of love and care to nurse her back to health.”
TikTok posts by Lebanese social influencers show people jokingly carrying struggling baby lions into offices, gyms, and driving around in the front seat of cars.
Meyer said the lion, who was only 1 to 2 months old at the time, should have still been with its mother.
Animal rights groups ultimately won a court order allowing the lions to be confiscated and released for relocation. By the time they rescued her in September, she had grown from small enough to be lifted with one hand to an 80-pound wild animal.
Although keeping lions and tigers as pets is illegal in the country, they are common enough that they are the favorite props of wealthy Lebanese looking to increase their social media following. The animals come primarily from breeding programs at zoos in Lebanon and sell for between $10,000 and $15,000, according to Animals Lebanon.
Even in zoos, exotic animals often suffer.
“We just don’t have the veterinary expertise in this country,” Meyer said. “There is no proper enclosure. The animals usually sit on cement in the dark and are not given proper nutrition. And they die young.”
Since last year, the animal rights group has sent four other lions rescued in Lebanon to an internationally accredited wildlife facility in South Africa. They cannot be released into the wild, but live out their lives in family groups that can afford to roam around the reserve.
Other rescued animals include six baboons that Meyer is taking to a sanctuary in Dorset, England, a lion and a bear from Baalbek Zoo in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Contains 8 animals including , tiger, and jaguar.
A young lion, troubled by displacement and confinement, paces around the cage, but becomes quiet when Shaarawi reaches over the fence to scratch his fur. Her caregivers cried as the yacht departed from the pier, a metal cage placed between tan leather seats. Meyer said the luxury ship ended up being cheaper than chartering other ships.
A video of Shaarawi caring for a young lion shows the healthy-looking cub jumping into her arms and stretching while Shaarawi massages him. This has been the routine for the past two months, including hand-feeding and showering the animal.
“She was confined to my apartment for almost two months and I had to take care of her,” Shaarawi said. “It was very difficult. I thought, ‘Oh no, there’s a bombing. How am I going to escape with a lion?'” But she was the reason I woke up every morning. ”
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