Maggie Shaarawi, vice chairman of Animals Lebanon, tries to calm Sara the lion cub in Beirut earlier than the animal is transferred in another country, on Thursday.
Ali Khara for NPR
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Ali Khara for NPR
BEIRUT — It is hours earlier than daybreak and the marina in Beirut’s Dbayeh district is abandoned aside from a small group of males lifting a metallic cage labeled “live lion” onto a yacht. The passenger is a cub rescued by a Lebanese animal welfare group from its life as a TikTok video prop.
The group from Animals Lebanon has pushed to the waterfront in a small convoy of automobiles, joined by NPR, spaced extensively aside to keep away from being seen as a risk by Israeli drones overhead. Because the solar started to rise, columns of smoke from an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs hung over town.
The boat journey to Cyprus on Thursday was the primary a part of a journey to ship the animal to a wildlife refuge in South Africa.
After flights to Dubai after which Cape City, Animals Lebanon cofounder Jason Meier and the lion cub arrived on the Drakenstein Lion Park sanctuary Friday. A video despatched from there exhibits the animal, named Sara, in a wire fenced enclosure two lions on the opposite facet that will likely be a part of her new household.
Sara the lion cub performs in an condominium the place she was sheltered by the rescue group Animals Lebanon in Beirut, Monday.
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Hassan Ammar/AP
Animals Lebanon says the cub is the fifth lion it has rescued and transported from Lebanon since combating erupted between the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Israel final yr. That combating has escalated into all-out battle since Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in September. Since Animals Lebanon was based in 2008, it has rescued and transported 25 lions, tigers and different large cats from Lebanon to sanctuaries all over the world.
Earlier than September, the group was capable of fly the animals out. However Meier says he was then informed by Center East Airways, the one service nonetheless flying out and in of Lebanon, that it was not transporting animals. The airline declined to touch upon its insurance policies.
Meier, an American who grew up in Michigan, is acutely conscious that with a lot human struggling because of the continuing battle, some individuals would think about it frivolous to give attention to rescuing animals.
Animal rescue employees transfer a crate carrying Sara the lion cub in Beirut, on Thursday.
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Ali Khara for NPR
Maggie Shaarawi, of Animals Lebanon, movies Sara the lion cub in a crate earlier than the animal is transferred in another country, on Thursday.
Ali Khara for NPR
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Ali Khara for NPR
“This is the expertise we have, and while we are helping animals, we are directly helping people,” he says in an interview within the Beirut condominium he shares along with his spouse, who’s Lebanese and a cofounder of the group.
The lion has been staying within the couple’s spare bed room of their small condominium in downtown Beirut since September, whereas Meier was arranging tips on how to get it in another country.
In its day-to-day actions, the group rescues and cares for pets left behind when their panicked house owners fled Israeli airstrikes. Their headquarters in central Beirut is crammed with greater than 200 cats, canines and birds belonging to individuals displaced by the now year- lengthy battle.
“We have been contacted more than a thousand times since the end of September and it’s not a cat or a dog picking up the phone,” says Meier. “These are people who want our help. So yes, we’re helping the community by helping animals.”
Emotional animal rescue employees embrace after Sara the lion cub departs on the Dbayeh sea port on Thursday.
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Ali Khara for NPR
Virtually 1 million individuals in Lebanon have been displaced by Israeli airstrikes — lots of of 1000’s of them staying in faculties become shelters. He says lots of the house owners come every time they’ll to go to their pets.
Animals Lebanon rescued the 4-month-old lion from a social media influencer who the group says was utilizing her as a prop in TikTok movies.
“It wasn’t a life for a lion,” says Maggie Shaarawi, the group’s cofounder and the lion’s major caregiver. “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 get her back to health.”
The TikTok posts by a Lebanese social influencer present him carrying a struggling child lion into an workplace and a fitness center as a joke and driving round together with her within the entrance seat of a automobile.
Simply 1 or 2 months previous on the time, the lion ought to have been nonetheless together with her mom, Meier says.
Maggie Shaarawi, vice chairman of Animals Lebanon, poses for {a photograph} on the Dbayeh sea port on Thursday.
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Ali Khara for NPR
A crate containing Sara the lion cub is transferred by animal rescue employees on the Dbayeh sea port on Thursday.
Ali Khara for NPR
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Ali Khara for NPR
The animal welfare group ultimately received a court docket order permitting the lion to be confiscated and handed over to them for relocation. By the point they took custody of her in September, she had grown from being sufficiently small to be picked up with one hand to an 80 pound wild animal.
Preserving lions and tigers as pets is unlawful within the nation though widespread sufficient that they’re a favourite prop of prosperous Lebanese attempting to spice up their social media followings. The animals come principally from breeding packages in Lebanese zoos and promote for between $10,000 and $15,000, in line with Animals Lebanon.
Even in zoos, non-native animals right here usually endure.
“You don’t really have the veterinary expertise in this country,” says Meier. “You don’t have proper enclosures. The animals are sitting inside, in general, on cement, usually in darkness and without appropriate nutrition. And they just die at an early age.”
The animal welfare group has despatched 4 different lions rescued in Lebanon to internationally accredited wildlife services in South Africa since final yr. They can’t be launched into the wild however will stay out their lives in household teams with room to roam the protect.
Sara the lion cub leaves by way of yacht on the Dbayeh sea port.
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Ali Khara for NPR
Different rescued animals embody six baboons Meier is attempting to get to a sanctuary in Dorset, England, and eight animals from a zook in Baalbek, in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, together with lions, bears, a tiger and a jaguar.
The younger lion, distressed by the motion and confinement, paces within the cage however quiets when Shaarawi reaches via the bars to scratch her fur. Her caregiver cries because the yacht units off from the dock, the metallic cage set down between tan leather-based seats. Meier says the luxurious vessel ended up being cheaper than chartering different boats.
Movies of Shaarawi caring for the younger lion present the healthy-looking cub bounding into her arms, stretching as Shaarawi massages her — a day by day routine over the past two months that included hand-feeding and showering the animal.
“She was stuck with me in my apartment for almost two months and I had to care for her,” Shaarawi says. “It was challenging. I thought, ‘God forbid, there’s a bombing — how would I run away with a lion?’ But she was the reason I woke up every morning.”
