An Ohio court yesterday delayed the return of The Post’s lion cub, which was purchased last year as part of an exposé of the horrific trade in exotic cats.
Three judges ruled the 7-month-old cat must remain with the Noah’s Lost Ark animal sanctuary in Berlin Center while it makes one last-ditch appeal to try to keep it.
Last week, a judge ordered the sanctuary to return the cub – co-purchased for $1,000 by Post investigative reporter Al Guart and Ohio animal activist Bill Long in October – to Long.
From the beginning, Guart and Long had planned to send the cub to an animal sanctuary run by actress Tippi Hedren in California, where it could run free.
But after Guart put the cub in the temporary custody of Noah’s, that sanctuary’s director, Ellen Whitehouse, refused to give it back, accusing the reporter of abandoning the cat.
The court previously ruled there was no abandonment and that Noah’s has no right to keep the cub. Arguments on the final appeal are scheduled for July 7.
The animal was originally rescued from a cramped cage at a private roadside animal market in rural Ohio.