Rooaaarrr

This lion cub will not be bullied by its older aunt. When the lions got cubs there's often something going on in the enclosure in Copenhagen Zoo.

Playing in the snow

Even though the weather in Copenhagen might not be their favourite, the lion cubs in Copenhagen Zoo seems to enjoy a playing in the snow.

Keep the window closed, please

No, it's not possible to open these windows, so the children are perfectly safe. Here the public can get really close to the lions without having to be afraid of ending on the menu.

Let sleeping lions lie

I know the idiom normally says to let sleeping dogs lie, but I'd rather wake up a dog than these lions. To many guests at Copenhagen Zoo the lions are boring because they seem to sleep all day. The male lion is said to sleep up to 20 hours a day, so it's no wonder that this position is the one people remember best from their visit.

Lovely smell

The lions have a terrific sense of smell, making these freshly cut branches a very interesting thing to investigate and mark for the male lion.

Spoiling the fun

At Copenhagen Zoo the zookeepers often activate the animals by hiding small pieces of food so that the animals have to work to get it out. In this case small pieces of meat had been hidden inside a red rubber ball, making it very interesting for this lion cub. It didn't take long for the mother to turn up to spoil the fun though, as is often the case for both lions and humans alike.

In the lion's den

In the lion's den the young cubs are often in for some rough handling by the elders. Most of it is play but from time to time the cubs annoy the father a bit too much and then retribution is swift. In the next couple of days I'll show you more photos of the big cats in Copenhagen Zoo.

Lion

At St Thomas's Square at the end of Frederiksberg Allé are two monuments to commemorate the foundation of the city of Frederiksberg. On all four sides of the monuments are these great copper lions. Frederiksberg is a municipality that is surrounded by the municipality of Copenhagen. It's the smallest municipality areawise in Denmark and has a total population of 95.000. It started out as a farming town in June 2, 1651 when King Frederik III gave 20 Danish-Dutch families the right to settle here. When a Royal Palace was build on top of Valby Hill the town started to grow as a merchant town, and now you'll have to look in futile for any farms in this area. It's considered a upper class area, especially among its inhabitants.