- Title: BRAZIL: LION KEPT AS FAMILY PET FOR EIGHT YEARS
- Date: 11th August 1995
- Summary: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (RECENT) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV EXT HOUSE OF COSTA FAMILY IN RIO DE JANEIRO SUBURB 0.10 2. MV CATS AND DOGS IN PATIO 0.13 3. MV CAGE WHERE LION IS KEPT 0.14 4. MV OWNER PLAYING WITH LION (2 SHOTS) 0.21 5. MV LION OWNER JOAO COSTA TALKING (PORTUGUESE) ABOUT HOW AT FIRST SHE WAS JUST A CUB, THEN SHE GREW A
- Embargoed: 26th August 1995 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
- City:
- Country: Brazil
- Reuters ID: LVA4S1ECXHFS8WS5LF3K96AYYSZW
- Story Text: INTRO: A Brazilian family has kept an unusual pet for nearlyeight years, proving that man and beast can coexist, even under the same roof. Luma, a 180 kg lioness, lives in the family home, which she shares with dozens of dogs and cats.
Just a five-minute drive from Rio's world famous Maracana soccer stadium Luma the lioness paces up and down in the Costa family's backyard.
Ever since the Costas bought Luma for 100 grammes in gold from a local breeder eight years ago, she has lived at the back of their house surrounded by the family's 15 mongrel dogs and more than 40 cats.
Born in Brazil, Luma joined the Costa family as a cuddly lion cub when she was only 24 days old. Now she weighs 180 kg and stands two metres tall.
"She would never attack us, but sometimes she is not in a good mood and then she is best left in peace," said Joao Costa. "We can tell by the position of her ears. When they are upright we can enter the cage, but when they're folded back we don't go in." Joao Costa, 51, and his eldest son Marcelo, 23, are the only ones who enter Luma's cage to play with her and scratch her belly.
She is simply too big and strong for Costa's wife Maria Aparecida, 47, and their other six children.
Luma's appetite is ravenous especially when it comes to chicken necks, avocado and chocolate milk from a baby bottle. She can eat between three to eight kilos of her favorite food a day.
Costa, who has also had tigers and jaguars in the past, does not consider Luma an unusual pet, saying there are dozens of people in Rio who own lions and other wildcats.
In Brazil it is a criminal offence to keep native animals and birds as pets but the Costas are breaking no law by keeping the fully grown lioness at the back of their house.
Millions of animals in Brazil fall victim every year to the destruction of their habitats or the traps and guns of smugglers and poachers, studies show.
Only one out of every 10 animals smuggled out of the country's Amazon rain forest to feed an international exotic pets market survives to reach its final destination, according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).
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