A new big cat is coming to Zoo Boise. Here’s why she’s coming and when you can see her

Zoo Boise is getting ready to welcome a new star of the show to its family: a 2-year-old female African lion. Fewer than 25,000 African lions remain in the wild, and Zoo Boise will soon be home to two.

The zoo announced the addition of the lioness Wednesday and hopes to have her on display to the public by mid-April, Boise Parks and Recreation director Doug Holloway told the Idaho Statesman.

The lioness — who is yet to have a name — arrives in Boise from the Santa Barbara Zoo, where she was born in November 2020. Zoo Boise decided to bring her in to replace the two female lions that died in the past year, both at the age of 22, because of liver cancer. The new lioness will keep Zoo Boise’s remaining lion, an 11-year-old male named Revan, company.

Upon arriving at the zoo, the new lioness will undergo 30 days of quarantine before slowly being introduced to Revan.

“There will be a transition period on how we introduce her to not only her new environment but also her new friend that she will have in the exhibit,” Holloway said. “And so sometimes that’s done in short stretches.

“So that might delay a little bit of getting her out on exhibit full-time,” Holloway continued. “So we just ask that our community be patient with us as we work through all the details to introduce, for the first time since 2008, that we have a new lioness in an exhibit at Zoo Boise.”

There is no plan for the lions to breed, Holloway said, because the exhibit isn’t set up to hold lion cubs. The male lion, Revan, arrived in Boise from Baltimore Zoo in 2018 — Holloway described him as “extremely laid back.” Although male lions tend to fare OK alone, they’re a social species and enjoy being around others of their kind.

For this reason, Zoo Boise worked with its partners in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to bring a new lioness to the zoo when the previous two, Mudiwa and Obadiah, died.

“I think our guests are going to be really happy and excited to see another lioness in with Revan, and a young one at that,” Holloway said. “So, being only 2 years old, we’re excited that she’s going to be with us for a long, long time.”

Zoo visitors will be able to see the new lioness in Zoo Boise’s African Plains Exhibit following her quarantine and introduction to Revan.