A Zoo Birthday Bash: Pesho, Sidai, and Lomelok

On January 9, lion cubs Pesho, Lomelok, and Sidai turned 1! As part of the celebration, they got a banner and some special enrichment. However, the weather wasn’t the best, with major snowfall predictions keeping the crowds at home, so many zoo fans took to zoolife.tv to watch the festivities through the live cams that monitor Pepper Family Wildlife Center during operating hours. If you missed it all, here are some highlights from the lion habitat for your browsing pleasure.

Here are two muddy cubs playing:

Here’s a cub enjoying one of the meaty bones the lions get as enrichment:

And here are all three birthday boys, unbothered by the rainy winter weather in Chicago:

The whole pride took to one of the heated rocks for family time:

In case you were wondering, here’s what one of the enrichment items, a pinata in the shape of a klipspringer that was created by zoo’s Volunteer Enrichment Group, looks like:

And here is aunt Hasira, who managed to keep out of the mud, at least for a while:

Take a look at one more video, just because they’re cute and there can never be too many lion videos:

If you love these videos, check out the zoo’s Live Cams. From there, you can go to zoolife.tv for more videos, zoo chats, discussion areas, and the ability to control the camera.