Remembering Bakari, Our African Lion

Bakari and his two sisters, Suri and Jillian, were rescued in 2007 at four weeks of age from a big cat sanctuary in Louisiana. Due to overcrowding in their facility they were unable to keep the cubs, so Lions Tigers & Bears stepped in and accepted all three lions. As a cub, Bakari was definitely the boy of the litter. He had a laid back personality and let his two sisters do all the work.

Bakari was named by two of our wonderful supporters at Lions Tigers & Bears, Janice and Gary Freiberg. They bid to name him at our annual  Wild in the Country fundraiser in June of 2007. After doing research on African names they finally chose Bakari which is an African expression that translates to "one with great promise." Bakari enjoys napping in his spacious habitats (lions sleep up to 20 hours per day) and showing his sisters who's boss.