A local circus was raided by environmental police (Seprona) who seized a two and a half year old male lion which didn’t have his papers in order.
(There is a joke going round that it should be been the immigration police who seized him….)
Anyway, Seprona carried out a spot check on the circus in Cabo de Gata this week and discovered that out of the five African lions in the act, one didn’t have any paperwork or proof of where it had come from, and its CITES certificate was “dodgy”. So they have seized this fine example of Panthera leo and he is currently residing with the Customs people in Almería, who are, I expect, nervously feeding him Mercadona’s best sausages through the grille of his cage.
The owner of the circus has received an “administrative notification of an infraction”, ie, find the paperwork or face an eyewatering fine. The fate of Mr Lion is undecided at this point.