Research on the zoo population of lions from the Moroccan Royal Collection

The link below takes you to the 2010 article which identified the total population of animals derived from the collection of the King of Morocco, which was moved from the lion garden at the palace in Rabat to a then newly constructed Rabat zoo in 1969.

Since that time several animals and their progeny have moved to zoos around the globe. Their descendents are now only found in zoos in Europe and Israel, plus the remaining animals in Morocco, recently moved to a modern park, le Jardin Zoologuique de Rabat.

A number of other zoos across the globe claim to have animals descended from this lineage, or considered descendents of the Barbary lion, but have this provenance is yet to be confirmed.

The research article on Moroccan and European-based animals can be found here:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10344-009-0280-5