Meet Our Lions!

Lion Habitat Ranch was founded in 1989 to be the home of the lions on display at the MGM Grand casino. From 1989-2012 the ranch was closed to the public and you could only see the lions at the MGM Grand casino. The MGM exhibit closed in 2012 and we opened the ranch here to allow people to continue to connect with our lions and be inspired to conserve wild lion populations. Lion Habitat Ranch is currently home to 21 lions. All of our lions born before 2012 could have been seen at the MGM Grand, but they may or may not be part of the MGM bloodline. Those born 2012 or later were not shown at the MGM Grand, but they are still part of the MGM bloodline, and are the direct descendants of the original MGM lion that you see roaring at the beginning of the movies.

We house 2 subspecies of lions here at Lion Habitat Ranch. The lions making up the MGM bloodline are Barbary lions. Barbary lions were found on the Northern (Barbary) coast of Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, and they are unfortunately now extinct in the wild. Barbary lions are typically a little larger than other subspecies of lions and the males sport very impressive manes that extend past their shoulders and often go down their bellies as well. Our lions that are not a part of the MGM bloodline are South African lions. South African lions are found south of the Sahara Desert. Since South African lions are the only subspecies still found in the wild in Africa, they are now more commonly referred to as African lions. There are roughly 20,000 South African lions left in the wild.