A ZOO has threatened to kill five more lions after euthanising two already unless the wildlife park is saved amid ongoing financial woes.
Kamo Wildlife Sanctuary in New Zealand issued a stark ultimatum, saying it will be forced to euthanise the remaining lions if the park is not purchased soon.
Staffers at the zoo said they were forced to kill two lions last week because of their age.
They said the big cats were suffering from “serious health conditions” that were “not treatable” and “deteriorating”, Stuff news reports.
Facility operator Janette Vallance called it a “difficult decision”, saying “there were no real options left.”
In that statement, she said that the animals were all between 18 and 21 years old.
The wildlife park has been looking for a new buyer amid financial difficulties for the past two decades, and has been up for sale since August.
However, the remaining five lions could yet be saved, in what Vallance is describing as a “glimmer of hope”.
In a new Facebook post on Thursday, Vallance said a “few individuals” had expressed interest in purchasing the facility and “continuing to care for the lions”.
“While the timeframe is short and the situation remains uncertain, we are doing everything we can to explore this possibility and keep hope alive.”
The zoo initially gained a profile as the setting for a reality television programme that starred its founder, Craig Busch, who was known as the “Lion Man”.
In 2009, the park made international headlines after a rare white tiger mauled a zookeeper to death in front of horrified tourists.
The then-named Zion Wildlife Gardens pleaded guilty to health and safety charges in relation to the keeper’s death, and had to pay NZ$60,000 (£26,000) in reparations to his family.
Current owner Bolton Equities took ownership of the sanctuary in 2014, shortly after the park was closed to the public by the MPI for failing to meet the requirements for animal enclosures.
It remained closed for seven years before finally reopening in 2021.
However, just two years later, in 2023, it was put into involuntary liquidation.
It comes after a marine park in Canada issued a stark ultimatum saying it will be forced to euthanise all of its whales if they aren’t given help to rehome them.
The owners reportedly warned it can no longer afford to pay for their feeding or care.
In a last-minute plea they also tried to send the belugas to China where they could be looked after.
But Canada‘s country’s fisheries minister, Joanne Thompson, denied the request for a permit to export the belugas.
She said it would only cause “further exploitation” of the animals as they would likely be made to live in “tanks for entertainment”.
This prompted the park to impose a deadline on the government to either grant the permit or send them money to support the whales.
The park has been criticised in the past over how it homes the aquatic animals.
One orca whale and 19 beluga whales have died at Marineland since 2019, according to The Canadian Press news agency.
The park also had to close due to a falling attendance as many boycotted sea life parks.
It also struggled to survive due to a new law imposed in 2019.
