Cambodian prime minister allows captured pet lion to be returned to owner

Cambodian Prime Minister Shun Sen has allowed the captured male lion to be returned to its owner, as netizens have shown sympathy for the animal. The lion had stopped eating when it was sent to a wildlife conservation centre.

Officials, in collaboration with the animal rescue NGO Wildlife Alliance, caught the lion on June 27 from a man’s house in the Boung Keng Kang district of the capital, Phnom Penh. The man’s neighbor had complained to the authorities after watching a Tiktok video that he had kept a lion in the house.

Under the Cambodian law, people do not have the right to keep wild animals at home as pets.

However, Shun Sen said that it was a special case that he returned the lion to the owner because he saw that the owner had treated the animal as a member of the family and that it was a small cub.

Last night Hun Sen made a post on Facebook that this evening, I spoke to the Minister of Agriculture (Weng Sakhon) and agreed to allow the owner to take the lion back, provided that it remains indoors and with the safety of its neighbours. Build a proper cage to ensure safety.

“Thank you to our countrymen inside and outside the country for giving suggestions and showing mercy to the lion,” he said.

The lion was handed over to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Conservation and Rescue Center in southern Takeo province soon after its seizure and the lion’s owner was fined $30,000.
Responding to a Facebook user about what happened to the fines imposed by the authorities, Shun Sen said that if this is true, the money would be returned to the lion’s owner.

The owner took his lion back from the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Conservation and Rescue Center on Monday afternoon and promised to build a proper enclosure.

The 18-month-old lion, weighing more than 70 kg, has been reared by the owner as a cub imported from abroad, Wildlife Alliance said.