August 27, 2025
SEOUL – Remember the white lion couple rescued from a poorly managed underground zoo in Daegu in 2023? Their first tentative steps on sunlit grass in an open-air enclosure at a larger zoo, captured by news cameras, brought relief to many, while renewing public calls for stricter oversight of privately run indoor zoos in South Korea.
Those two lions have now welcomed three baby cubs to the world.
According to Spavalley, the new home of the lions, on Monday, the cubs were born at around 1 p.m. on Aug. 18. The first male cub weighed 1.6 kilograms, the second female weighed 1 kilogram and the third female weighed about 800 grams.
The park said it has formed a special care team to provide around-the-clock monitoring and feeding.
“Currently, the three babies are being artificially reared. Because the mother is not caring for them, we are doing our best to save the babies,” said Chun Keun-bae, a breeding team manager at Spavalley.
The cubs will not be available to the public until their growth is stable, the park said.
The lion pair had given birth in 2022 and 2023 while at the underground zoo, but none of the cubs survived. The lions themselves were born and kept in a basement cell before being moved to Spavalley in June 2024.
The two lions were among more than 324 abandoned animals rescued after the closure of the indoor zoo in May 2023.
