Novosibirsk Zoo

The Novosibirsk Zoo is a scientific institution as well as a popular tourist attraction. The zoo has around 11,000 creatures speaking to 738 species and is a functioning member in thirty-two distinctive hostage rearing projects for imperiled species. By and large, more than 1,500,000 individuals visit the zoo every year. In 2000, the zoo was found to hold dark maned lions that gave off an impression of being the nearest surviving relatives of the terminated Cape lion of South Africa. John Spence, a South African zoo chief, had dependably been captivated by stories of these fabulous lions scaling the dividers of General van Riebeeck's mansion in the seventeenth century.

He trusted some Cape lions may have been taken to Europe and interbred with different lions. His hunt took thirty years, which drove him to the Novosibirsk Zoo, where he found the nearest living similarity to the cape lion; the zoo called the lion Simon. The lion and his family are kept outside in expansive, characteristic settings. "It is kept all the year around in the atmosphere states of the west Siberia at the temperatures from −49 to 36 °C −56 to 97 °F. In forty years, in excess of sixty whelps were conceived." The Novosibirsk Zoo could send two lion fledglings to Spence's zoo in South Africa for rearing.