ZSL London Zoo’s Land of the Lions opened its doors last year for its overnight Gir Lion Lodge Experience – running six nights a week all year.
Land of the Lions, the zoo’s largest project to date, first welcomed visitors at Easter 2016 after being unveiled by HM The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh – 40 years after Her Majesty opened its predecessor, The New Lion Terraces.
The zoo’s newest exhibit takes visitors from the heart of London to India’s Sasan Gir, the last stronghold of the Asiatic Lion. Guests can bed down for the night in the Gir Lion Lodge, a suite of nine lodges within the exhibit, decorated to mirror hotels in the lion’s native habitat.
Asiatic lions had been almost wiped out in India but conservation efforts by the western state of Gujarat over the past 50 years have saved them from extinction, though as few as 500 are thought be left in the wild in Gujarat’s Gir Forest.
Hanuman langur monkeys also wander the exhibit, separated from the lions, who are contained by 5m high fencing with an overhang.
Senior project manager Robin Fitzgerald says: “You have to create those conditions, but not make it look like a mesh enclosure. So you can see them, you can smell them and really feel like you are amongst them.”
Zaun Group company Binns Fencing is known for its security fencing, though it has recently finished the new lion enclosure at Longleat, as featured on the BBC’s Animal Park in August 2016.
Three walkways cover the 2,500 sq m exhibit – half the size of a football pitch – which is five times the size of the previous enclosure. They are fitted with 358 steel mesh by fencing installer Binns, so people can get closer to the big cats from a safe vantage point.
