BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Roy Horn, with Prosperity, a female white lion cub to be presented to the zoo Thursday.
(Contributed photo)
| ZOOM |
|
Prosperity comes roaring into Cincinnati in a big way Thursday. That's when Roy Horn, of the illusionist duo Siegfried and Roy, presents the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden with a rare, 7-month-old female white lion of Timbavati.
The lioness, named Prosperity, will join males Sunshine and Future, now 10 months old, whom Siegfried and Roy presented in February. The gift allows the Cincinnati Zoo to chalk up two more firsts:
- The only U.S. zoo with a pride of Timbavati lions.
- The only U.S. zoo where breeding of Timbavati lions is possible.
The lions could breed as early as mid-1999. After a four-month gestation, Prosperity could deliver near the turn of the century. "That's why Roy calls the group the Pride of the Millennium," said Siegfried and Roy publicist Frank H. Lieberman.
White lions of the Timbavati Game Preserve in South Africa are extinct in the wild, Mr. Lieberman said. The 25 left are in captivity: three here, 12 at Siegfried and Roy's Las Vegas compound, four in South Africa, two in Germany and four in zoos around the world.
Because the lions are so rare, the only value Mr. Lieberman would place on them is "priceless."
Cincinnati's lions are on loan but will likely remain here forever, Mr. Horn has said.
The lions are here because of the zoo's successful breeding program and because Siegfried and Roy have a long relationship with zoo director Ed Maruska. The zoo holds the U.S. record for births of lowland gorillas (45) and black rhinoceroses (17), and it is home to the only three Sumatran rhinoceroses outside Southeast Asia.
After Thursday's 1 p.m. presentation -- open to zoo visitors -- the cubs will live in the newly renovated Big Cat Canyon. Siegfried and Roy funded the renovation at a cost of more than $50,000.
