A sad goodbye to lion Jago

Animal news | 27 April 2022

Our male lion Jago had been in obvious pain for several weeks and his general wellbeing was getting worse and worse. He became increasingly weak, was eating very little, and vomiting some of his meat back up. Unfortunately, the medications administered did not work and so an examination was carried out under anaesthetic. Among other things, he was found to have a greatly enlarged spleen, anaemia, and his kidneys were beginning to fail. Due to the poor prognosis at this time, and in order to spare him further suffering, we made the decision to put him to sleep while still under anaesthetic.

Lions can occasionally live up to the age of twenty in a zoo. At over 16 years old, Jago was already at an advanced age, and age-related illnesses were to be expected. We now hope that the ongoing further investigations will provide more detailed information on the exact causes of his illness.

In Jago, we have lost a beautiful and very affable male lion. With him around, tensions rarely flared within the pride.

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Jago was born on 2 October 2005 in Aalborg Zoo (Denmark). At the age of 17 months, the young lion came to Dresden and moved into the then newly built lion complex together with lioness Layla (born in 2005 in Amsterdam Zoo).

Six years later, visitors and staff at Dresden Zoo were delighted to see Jago and Layla’s first offspring. The two cubs Abaja and Damien were born on 1 and 4 August 2012 respectively, and still live in the Dresden complex. Since no other animal – no matter what gender – can be integrated into an existing lion family, only three lions will be seen in our zoo from now on.

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