The sea lion Gaston lost his life in floods 20 years ago. His family lives on
/PHOTO GALLERY/ The famous sea lion, which in 2002 swam from the Prague Zoo during the floods and subsequently died of exhaustion, left several descendants in the world. Some of them can also be seen in the Prague Zoo.
Sea lions at the Prague Zoo.
| Photo: Courtesy of Prague Zoo
There were a total of seven Gaston descendants who lived to old age. “Most of them are long dead, because they were old or died of various diseases,” says Jakub Mezei, a breeder of South African sea lions from Troja, Prague. At the same time, he adds that the last of the direct descendants, Gaston’s daughter Abeba, is still alive, and what’s more, in the Prague Zoo. Although at 19 she is already the age of a grandmother’s sea lion, she is doing well and is still vital and healthy.
Male sea lions usually live twenty, twenty-two years at most. Females die only around the age of thirty. Abeba is the last of Gaston’s children still alive. Her stepson Meloun died this June.
The sea lion Gaston became one of the symbols of the flood, but he did not survive his trip down the Elbe
Abeba was born as a gravedigger approximately ten months after Gaston’s death. Her mother was a female Bára, who came to the zoo in 1991 from the wild as an almost one-year-old cub. Abeba is currently the oldest female South African sea lion in the garden and has herself become the mother of five pups she had with Melon. He is the offspring of Gaston and the sea lion female Julinka. Of all these grandsons and granddaughters of Gaston, only one lives in the Prague Zoo.
“Ed has now taken over as leader of the harem after Melon’s death. He doesn’t have his own cubs yet, because he’s only three years old, but he’s almost sexually mature,” Mezei describes.
Both Abeba and Eda can be seen swimming with the other sea lions in the outdoor pool, but also at the show where the breeders present them. “Eda is not yet able to do enough for us to conduct commented training with him alone. He is still a youngster who is learning. We will always introduce him anyway, because all the sea lions we have here take part in the show,” says breeder Mezei.
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The sea lion show is free as part of the entrance fee. The breeders show the audience how a veterinary inspection takes place. “We teach sea lions to have their eyes, teeth, basically their whole body checked. We show that we are teaching them to walk in the transport box. This is especially important in case of further floods, if it is necessary to transport them to a safer part of the zoo,” says Mezei.
The breeders do not have much news about the other cubs of Abeba and Melon. They are said to be located all over Europe in various breeding facilities.