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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Counselor To Help Kids Scared By Lion Escape Condition Of The Cages Is Atrocious, Says Humane Society Official

Associated Press

A counselor was preparing to comfort traumatized children Friday, a day after 15 African lions were killed after escaping a dilapidated compound.

Lava Elementary School Principal Richard Nielson, who has only been on the job two weeks, said he was appalled when he found out the privately owned Ligertown Game Farm was just outside the small southeastern Idaho tourist town of about 480 people.

“That place is about a mile and a half across the mountain from this town’s children,” Nielson said. “I can’t believe this has been allowed to go on.”

He said a school counselor would be prepared to help any children traumatized by the escape.

Sixteen lions were killed between the time of Wednesday night’s escape and Friday morning, when a male was shot by a police officer inside the squalid enclosure.

It was killed after lunging at Bill Torgerson, director of ZooMontana in Billings, and David Pauli, Northern Rockies regional director of the Humane Society of the United States.

The dead lions - their corpses strewn around the compound - were being moved on Friday to a refrigerated truck brought to the scene.

By midday, Torgerson and Pauli had started firing tranquilizer darts into approximately 20 lions, tigers and crossbred “ligers” that remained at the compound so they could be moved to an undisclosed location. Authorities planned tests on the animals and fecal matter to see if they were diseased.

“They expect the process to take three days. It’s just really slow,” Bannock County Sheriff’s Deputy Kim Roberts said.

“It’s quite a chess game,” Pauli said. “We’re going to try to do it as safely as possible. The condition of the cages is atrocious.”

He and Torgerson said that while the surviving animals did not appear to be undernourished, the cages were unreliable and unclean.

“Well-constructed zoos have an animal escape occasionally. The way this thing was made, there should have been an escape here every day,” Torgerson said. “I’ve never seen any animals kept in these kinds of conditions. It’s sad. I’m not here to pass judgment on the owners. I’m here to help the animals. But I don’t like what I see.”

Officials rescued five cubs Thursday night because they would have died without food and water. Pauli said none of the cages that housed lions had water in them. There was no place to store food and cages were littered with feces, chicken parts and other debris.

The big cats and more than 60 wolf hybrids were fed Thursday night and Friday with food donated by local restaurants and the Bannock County Jail. A farmer donated a cow for the lions to eat.

Offers to take in the surviving animals poured in from around the country, but officials said any found diseased would have to be destroyed. Some were taken to a small city zoo in Pocatello, but Roberts did not know if they were quarantined because of disease or allowed to mingle with other animals.

Meanwhile, local residents condemned Ligertown owners Dotti Martin and Robert Fieber, who live in a trailer house next to the enclosure with no running water, no phone and no electricity.

“This has been an eyesore with the county for years,” longtime resident Fred Magagna said.

“I think everybody’s just tired of it,” said Wendy Hobson, a cashier at a gas station. “They’re endangering lives. If they can’t fix the facility, they ought to ship them off or put them to sleep.”