Circus Lion Chained To Truck For 20 Years Takes First Steps To Freedom
A mountain lion who has spent his entire life chained to the back of a truck has finally taken his first steps to freedom. Mufasa (I guess inspired by the Lion King) was the name of the mountain lion who was rescued from an illegal Peruvian circus. Likely sold illegally on the exotic pet trade as an infant, Mufasa spent 20 years forced to perform from one village to the next. Animal Defenders International
The lion didn’t even had the comfort of a cage. It was locked up in the back of an open truck covered with tent poles to sleep. “It was heartbreaking to see Mufasa chained among the circus equipment, living on the back of a pickup truck,” the president of Animal Defenders International (ADI), Jan Creamer, 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.” Creamer described the scene as “the most sad, wretched thing that you’ve ever seen,” noting that “it was like he wasn’t even alive.”
Luckily he was rescued by ADI’s Operation Spirit of Freedom, a yearlong operation on illegal circuses in the wake of Peru’s 2011 ban on performing…
