Xerxes
We spent part of an afternoon together,
in quiet companionship
enjoying the heat
and noting the cold would come soon.
The lioness was unimpressed.
Not Esther, but Kaya this time.
She gave me warning looks —
a reminder of who was in charge.
I think she had a recipe in mind.
He nodded and if lions could smile,
he did. He would enjoy the company
and eat whatever she served later.
This time it was not me.
Big cats have always been of particular interest to me. Xerxes and Kaya were there when I visited the Assiniboine Park Zoo in 2011 and I spent a good part of the afternoon with them. He was quiet and content in the sun, except when the man on the small tractor drove up. Then Xerxes was alert. Perhaps they had crossed paths before in a way Xerxes didn’t like. Perhaps it was the engine sound. I don’t know, but every time the man drove near the enclosure, Xerxes was tense.
In May 2012, the two lions, along with their newborn cub, returned to a private facility in Ontario. Because it’s private, there is no information about the name of the facility, nor anything about Kaya or the newborn. Xerxes went on to Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle in 2014 as part of the Species Survival Plan breeding program and fathered three more cubs. I’m glad we met.
NOTE: Xerxes and Kaya were a South African lion subspecies Panthera leo krugeri, known as the Transvaal lion. In 2017, the lion taxonomy was updated and this group is now included in the broader Southern Lion subspecies, Panthera leo melanochaita.
