{"id":234589,"date":"2025-10-30T19:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T19:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234589\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T19:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T19:47:11","slug":"lion-cubs-explore-whipsande-zoo-pumpkin-patch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234589\/","title":{"rendered":"Lion cubs explore Whipsande Zoo pumpkin patch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Lions in a zoo have been filmed playing with carved pumpkins in their enclosure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Seven North African lion cubs got their paws covered as they toyed with the patch at Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Hayley Jakeman, animal operations manager at the zoo, said: &#8220;We&#8217;re making sure the animals aren&#8217;t missing out on any of the Halloween fun this October.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Introducing novel items to their habitat, or finding clever ways to conceal their usual breakfast is actually a great way of encouraging their curiosity, helping reinforce social bonds, and making sure they keep fit by hunting out their food.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The zoo welcomed four newborn lion cubs in March 2025, which boosted the size of its pride to 10. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Whipsnade Zoo said the four were vitally important for protecting the lineage of their &#8220;sadly threatened&#8221; sub-species which was only officially recognised in 2017.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Three quarters of African lion populations are declining, which the World Wildlife Fund blames on habitat loss, external, human-wildlife conflict and poaching. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">There are between 23,000 and 39,000 lions left in the wild, according to estimates from the International Union for Conservation of Nature. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Whipsnade Zoo said every visit supported the global conservation work of Zoological Society of London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lions in a zoo have been filmed playing with carved pumpkins in their enclosure. Seven North African lion&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-234589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}