South Africa donates 7 lions to Rwanda

A conservation group plans to move seven lions from South Africa to a national park in Rwanda, where it says the lion population was wiped out 15 years ago.

The five female lions and two males will be transferred to Rwanda’s Akagera National Park by truck and plane in a journey lasting more than 24 hours, said African Parks, a South Africa-based group that runs national wildlife parks in Africa. Cattle herders poisoned the Rwandan park’s last lions after parks were left unmanaged following Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, according to African Parks. The group manages Akagera, a Rwandan park on the border with Tanzania, and seven other national parks in Africa.

Two parks in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province are donating the lions to Rwanda. The lions will be kept in quarantine in an enclosure for at least two weeks before they are released into the wilderness.