Animal Lovers

Image Credit: Pat Craig / YouTube The life of a circus animal can often be one of incredible cruelty and sadness. Pancho and Temuco are brothers – and they are lions that used to live as circus performers in Bolivia. They were found starving and had endured hardships for years. The brothers were rescued by Animal Defenders International and are finally free to enjoy the simple things in life – like some fresh straw. Pancho and Temuco were brought to the ADI sanctuary in the United States, and they now are very happy and live together. The joy that fills the two lions is very easy to see in the video – look how they nuzzle and play with each other! It warms my heart to see these two big cats be so affectionate with each other! Take a look at this video Knowing how hard their lives were before – it is just an amazing feeling to know that they are now well-fed and loved and can live out their lives in comfort.

An elderly mountain lion who spent his life chained to the back of a truck has finally gotten a taste of freedom. Mufasa the mountain lion was rescued from an illegal Peruvian circus earlier this year. Likely sold into the exotic pet trade as an infant, he had spent 20 years being carted around from village to village and forced to perform. Lacking even the comfort of a cage, when he wasn't performing he would be locked up and chained in the open bed of a truck, where he'd curl up behind the tent poles to sleep. "It was heartbreaking to see Mufasa chained among the circus equipment, living on the back of a pickup truck," Jan Creamer, president of Animal Defenders International (ADI), said in a statement. "A heavy harness and chains were wrapped around his body and as we cut them away, he stretched, free, for the first time." At the time, Creamer described the scene as "the most sad, wretched thing that you've ever seen," noting that...