Sweet Lion Cubs Getting Ice Blocks on a Hot Day End in the Funniest Scoots

This heat has everyone losing their minds a little bit. It's truly awful, and honestly, a bit unseasonable! Summer just started, why is it 100+ degrees outside already? Humans have it a little better; at least we have air conditioning!

For zoo animals, though, summer must get pretty brutal, not to mention everyone staring at you all the time! Zookeepers do everything they can to keep their animals happy and healthy, and that includes enrichment activities. The heat led a couple of zoo staff to get creative and, recently, some lion cubs were treated to ice blocks to cool off:

Tanganyika Wildlife Park's idea is amazing and kind of hilarious. If I ever find myself near a lion cub on a hot day, you can bet I'll be trying this out!

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Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard, Kansas, is home to tons of different animals including sloths, otters, hippos, lions, and the most endangered big cat in the world: the Amur Leopard. The park hosts tons of live events and is a huge contributor to national breeding programs, which is epic, but when these animals are "off the clock," they still need to have fun.

And they do. In this video, you can see that these sweet little lion cubs were given ice blocks to have fun with. There wasn't anything frozen in the middle, it was just ice, and you'd think they'd have been given a pile of gold! Ice is both heavy and cold, so it would be impossible to pick up with their mouths, hence the crazy scooting. I think I need to try this with my dogs!

Lions Don't Love Water

Just like lots of house cats , the tale rings true: lions do not really like water. The lions in this video specifically are African lions, and they don't encounter enough water to need to swim frequently, so they aren't really built for it. They can swim, and have been known to do so for short distances when needed, but they'd rather not if they don't have to. Tigers are the big cats who really like to swim!

While lions do drink water (they lap it up just like house cats, and they're just as bad at it), it hardly provides any enrichment for them. Freezing it into blocks like this is a perfect solution, especially if there are little treats frozen into it: it keeps them cool, it keeps them interested, and it's incredibly entertaining for us!