So close...yet so far

UK race to unite Ukraine lioness with sad cubs

- LUCY THORNTON

BRITISH wildlife experts are frantically trying to reunite three lion cubs with their mum after they were saved from Ukraine.

Yorkshire Wildlife Park hopes to rescue Aysa and her traumatised cubs Santa, Emi and Teddi, who were caught up in the war.

The family are temporarily staying in Poznan Zoo in Poland, where the cubs are separated from their mum.

The one-year-olds have been calling out to Aysa as they can hear but not see her in the cage next door.

YWP's Colin Northcott has spent a week with the lions to prepare them for the move to Doncaster, South Yorks.

He said: "We are desperate to get them here, the longer they are separated from their mum harder it is to put them together again.

"The lions were SO distressed when I first saw them, they were huddling together, hissing and terrified."

Colin, 59, told how Poznan Zoo does not have space for the family because it is full of tigers who were also rescued from the warzone.

The deputy section head of carnivores said the lions are in a healthy condition. 

He added: "They have had to be separated from their mum for the journey from Ukraine.

"But after they arrived in Poland the mum would not accept the cubs back.