North Carolina Zoo Launches Lion Cub Naming Contest

ASHEBORO, NC –To mark the rare and exciting occasion of having four lion cubs born at the North Carolina Zoo, the zoo is giving visitors a chance to name the cubs, which include two females and two males. Since the zoo has several conservation projects aimed at saving lions in the wild, people are asked to submit names that have an educational value.

Names submitted for the lion cub contest can relate to places in Africa, the natural habitat or natural abilities of lions or the culture of people in African countries where lions are natives.  If more than one person submits the same name chosen as a winner, a drawing will be held to determine the winner. Zoo lion keepers will pick the four top entries and each winner will receive four zoo tickets apiece and a lion themed gift bag with items from the zoo’s gift shops. The contest will be conducted on the zoo’s website at www.nczoo.org and will end Oct. 6.

“All the world’s big cats are highly endangered. We need to take action now to save them,” said Dr. David Jones, the zoo’s director. “Through our conservation efforts the zoo is constantly helping to save many endangered species and bringing awareness to the dangers they encounter.”

One of the zoo’s lion conservation projects includes a partnership with the Ruaha Carnivore Project in Tanzania. This project focuses on reducing livestock predation by lions and monitors Ruaha National Park’s lion and other carnivore populations. To support the project the zoo has provided several mobile devices enabled with a program called CyberTracker, which makes computer data entry and analysis faster and more effective. By using these devices the Ruaha Carnivore Project has been able to expand its reach and is now working with tour guides from lodges in and around the park to gather additional information about the status of lions across the entire park which encompasses more than 5,000 square miles. The zoo is also helping Panthera, an organization that focuses on cat conservation, to protect lions and other carnivores by improving protected area management and law enforcement in national parks in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Video of the cubs can be found at the following link http://ow.ly/BMQOE.

The zoo is an agency of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, John E. Skvarla, III, Secretary; Pat McCrory, Governor.

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