Marseil custom officers have found another lion cub in one of the city’s garages, AFP reported. The unusual discovery is the second in a row since last Wednesday.
The tiny cub weighs just a few kilos, said the Marseille custom agents who have found two wild animal kids last week, according to Bruno Hamon, deputy chief of Marseille’s customs office. Police had been alerted to the cub by the viral videos circulating on social media, in which a man offered the cub for sale for about 10,000 euros.
The first female cub was discovered in a child’s bed and was in good health in the Paris apartment, the second was discovered in Marseille’s garage on Friday. A source close to the investigation said the cub was likely stolen and that the suspect appeared to have intended to resell the animal.
The police and custom warn that there have been a string of such cases around Europe in recent years. Last year, the half-starved cub rescued from an apartment in the east part of Paris, last year. In Utrecht, an abandoned cub was found in a cage in a field outside the Dutch city. The saddest thing is the traffickers use Instagram and YouTube as black markets for live small animals.
According to the Cheetah Conservation Fund, an estimated 300 cheetah cubs are smuggled annually out of the region encompassing Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia; 85 percent will die in transit due to starvation, dehydration, or disease.
