Lioness Čaja, who has been alone since the death of the male lion Maksimus, has a new companion. In mid-July, lioness Jeevana joined the animal community under the Rožnik Hill.

After two weeks of adapting to the new surroundings and getting to know each other indoors, for the first time on Monday, both lionesses started jointly exploring the outside and are now in view to visitors.

Endangered lion subspecies

Jeevana is one of 125 Asiatic lions now kept in a total of 42 zoos, which together form the first ex-situ conservation population of this endangered lion subspecies outside India in the breeding programme of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). The new lioness was born at Zoo Zurich, one of three zoos that imported the first nine Asiatic lions from India to Europe in the early 1990s. She was later moved from the main pride to the Jaszbereny Zoo in Hungary. As this lioness also lived alone, it was decided by the EAZA coordinator that the two 15-year-old lionesses would spend their adult years together at our zoo.
The lioness was named Jeevana at birth. As the Ambassador of India in Ljubljana, Mrs Namrata S. Kumar, explained, the new lioness bears a beloved and popular Hindi name for girls, which means »life« or »to be alive«. To preserve the meaning and the approximate pronunciation of the original name, to which the lioness responds, the Ljubljana ZOO has decided to call the lioness Živana.

Živana awaits her first Ljubljana visitors

Živana is now ready to welcome her first visitors in Ljubljana, who will most easily identify her by a slightly larger frame than Čaja's and thicker hair at the tip of her tail.

The new lioness Živana also received a special welcome from the Embassy of India in Ljubljana. On the occasion of the acquisition of the new lioness, Ambassador Namrata S. Kumar, who is particularly attentive to the Indian residents of the Ljubljana ZOO – Ganga the elephant, lionesses Čaja and Živana and others, donated trees to the Ljubljana ZOO to be planted in the Asiatic lions' enclosure as part of the Indian government's flagship initiative LIFEStyle For Environment and »Ek ped Maa ke naam« (A Tree for Mother Earth). Moreover, the Embassy of India has also become a new patron of the Ljubljana ZOO and will now take over the annual reforestation of this part of the Tivoli, Rožnik, Šiška Hill Landscape Park.