{"id":722471,"date":"2026-08-01T08:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T08:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722471\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T08:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T08:47:11","slug":"first-african-lions-in-over-a-decade-born-at-blackpool-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722471\/","title":{"rendered":"First African lions in over a decade born at Blackpool Zoo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Three African Lion cubs have been born at Blackpool Zoo &#8211; the first to be born there in more than a decade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">African Lions are currently classified as vulnerable in the wild, with the population having declined significantly over recent decades owing to loss of habitat, Human-Wildlife Conflict, and a reduction in natural prey, according to zoo experts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The cubs&#8217; mother, Hira, &#8220;unusually&#8221; gave birth outside during the day on Sunday, meaning some areas of their habitat are currently off-limits to visitors in order to protect the welfare of the newborn cubs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Section manager Adam Kenyon said staff at the zoo are &#8220;absolutely delighted&#8221; with the new arrivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three African Lion cubs have been born at Blackpool Zoo &#8211; the first to be born there in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-722471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722471","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=722471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}