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Ross Furbush
Frances McCue
Honors 345
4/16/12
The Atlas Lions
Prelude
Have you ever heard the story about the lioness named Barbara?
No
The reason you havent heard about Barb is because unlike Simba, who
plays the singing lion from Southern Africa, Barb isnt an individual. She isnt
contained in the hide and fur of one organism. Barb is played by the entire
Barbary Lion subspecies found in Northern Africa. Disney takes us on Simbas
bildungsroman, but no perspective besides the scientific omnipotent third
person has taken us through Barbs life. You see... the story of Barb cannot
be told by humans; they die too quickly. Instead human hands, stone, and
innovation have constructed the narrator. Buildings will lead the way; not
with a warm story of a king lion, who is convinced by a sexy lioness to return
to his homeland and defeat some rascal canines; Barb doesnt get a happy
ending.
Oh
Baba
My grandfather is not a native Moroccan. Despite remaining in Rabat
for more than 1700 years, he was built by the Romans. I have heard from my
visitors as they walk through my gates that he is now called the ruins of Sala

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Colonia, but I will forever know him as Baba. After his nasty fall in 1755
during the notorious Lisbon earthquake, he has never really been the same.
He still sits for all to see with a glass of mint tea in one hand and a stubborn,
granular cane with beige markings in the other, but he is hunched. Baba is
quiet; you must speak up for him to hear you. I try to tell him what I have
been up to on the other side of Rabat, but when he responds with a
complaint of the tourists inconsiderate noise volume, I doubt he could hear
me.
I remember when Baba would tell me stories of his childhood as his
first stones were being laid by the romans. He used to describe the terrain of
the deserted back country; home to many magnificent beasts. Baba lifted his
arms to form a Y and his eyes got big, The Atlas Mountains he would begin.
He bragged about the unforgiving, arid, sharp habitat; barren vegetation. He
would whisper in his deep crackly voice Its a harsh environment that makes
us strong; it is mountains like those that breed a monarchy of the best, the
royal. He told me about the Atlas Bear the only species of bear in Africa,
the Barbary Leopard with thicker fur than its southern cousin; the flocks of
tough Waldrapp Ibises; and his favorite, my favorite, the nations favorite:
her majesty: Barb.
I have never seen her. Baba has seen her many times but he has one
particular favorite story: The day had been especially hot and the setting sun
encouraged the roman masonries to work quickly and finish the foundation
of Babas forum. A lone figure appeared over the far hill. The masonries

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continued to work as Baba squinted to make out the still, watching figure. His
pillars could not rival the figures steadiness and ease. An argument broke
out among the masonries over Babas forum. He should have been focusing
on his own construction, but his eyes were instead fixed on the now trotting
figure. After disappearing in the valley for the rest of the argument, it
appeared now on the closest hill. The beast paused, peering from behind a
large bolder. Unlike its southern cousins, Barb hunts alone or in pairs
because of the scarcity of prey in the Atlas Mountains.
Baba paused to squeak in a quick cough. Her face was partially
covered by the shadow of the setting golden sun. She gracefully approached
the Bou Regreg and lowered her head as her tongue began to lap the rivers
surface. Her drinking came to a sudden stop, her head still bowed, a startling
splash, and she raced for cover back towards the mountains. A spear bobbed
from the depths of the river only two meters from her previous water break.
I remember later stories, about 1300 years later, during the 16th and
17th century where Baba told me about lion fights in Fez. Archers would
gather around a large square and shoot Barb who was isolated below high
stone walls. She would put up a fight, but always fall. Barb had many
replacements because the hills were scattered with lion dots.
I once asked Baba why there were no longer replacement dots. Baba
went on: Barb was strong. She could sometimes manage stick-figure men
with spears and slings, but she was unfamiliar with stick-figures and their
sticks that go bang. The Turkish administration, who owned all of North

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Africa, except for Morocco of course, issued a bounty on Barb. Firearms and
this lion eradication policy made Barb homeless.
Baba went on to scold two tribes by the name of Ouled Meloul and
Ouled Cessi who pursued and slaughtered for helpful payment and no
taxation. There were also the hunters for sport, killing Barb by the hundreds.
Baba had a couple friends in Tunisia and Algeria and he never let his
neighbors forget that they lost Barb first: she left by death by the end of the
19th century. The last recorded death in Tunisia was in 1891 near Babouch
and Babas Algerian friends made the final shot on Barb in 1893. Despite
Babas pride in Moroccos lasting hospitality towards Barb, his heart still
shows the painful cracks from when she was finished off for good near the
road between Marrakesh and Ouarzazat in 1942. This was the last ever
recorded wild Barbary lion. I remember him saying Barb bled more on that
day in 1942, than in all her years and from all her veins since the peaceful
lioness on the Bou Regreg.

Tahar
My name is Tahar. My grandfather, Baba, once told me that it is a harsh
environment that makes us strong. He told me I am bred to be royal. By his
standards I am a failure. The money I bring in doesnt even belong to me; I
only get a sliver of the silver. But me, I know I am royal. I am bred royal.
Royalty: because unlike Rafael and my other buddies I have a job.

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My walls form a square with unimpressive square footage. My floor tiles

are diagonal halves of a square with a low triangle roof. The human people
come through my doors paying eight dirham for the big ones and 6 dirham
for the small ones. In return they get a ticket stub for the Rabat Zoo. I am a
ticket shack.
The zoo has all sorts of animals. The monkeys are hilarious and the
giraffes are tall. The hippos are fat and the spiders crawl. The people love it!
Little kids gasp and point and the adults talk and point. The teenagers can
sometimes get out of hand. Once there was a group of students who I didnt
recognize (must have jumped the fence) who were trying to throw a leafy
branch into the elephant enclosure. The bull elephant charged and almost
grabbed one of the boys Abderrazzak jersey. Abderrazzak is the forward for
the Moroccan national football team who are called the Atlas Lions. We have
a full fleet of lions here at the Rabat zoo. The people clamber that the lions
here at the Rabat zoo are true descendants of Barb.
It is not unusual to attend college and be unable to apply your degree
to a career, especially in Morocco. I was a history major. We would have the
occasional research paper. The hardest part about completing a research
assignment was to find a stable internet connection; it was just copy and
paste from there:
Tahar Bouchtat
Hashim Dehbi
5/14/2010
History Class
Moroccan Lions and Kings

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Moroccan nobles and Berber people are said to have gifted lions
captured in the Atlas Mountains to sultans and kings. Barbary lions used
to be the most commonly exhibited lion, but after years of war and
insurrection they were hardly seen except the few of those owned by the
Sultan of Morocco. The sultan kept his lions in a special lion garden in the
royal place and fed them ox, or sheep and goats. These lions were not
open to the public.
The prized lions followed the kings: Sultan Moulay Youssef in a move
from Fez to Rabat, after Rabat was declared as the administrative center
of Morocco. He was followed by the royal lions, too, which were moved
from [their] residence near the Atlas Mountains. When Sultan Sidi
Mohammed Ben Youssef (later King Mohammed V) was forced to abdicate in
1953 and went into exile, the royal lions (21 total), too, lost their home at
the palace. Three of them were sent to a zoo in Casablanca and the rest were
sent to a zoo in Mekns. Next it was home sweet home for the king and his
lions. The Casablanca lions never came back, but the sultan and the
Mekns lions were welcomed back to power in 1955.
As the chess pieces of both royal families exchanged places the rest
of the world continued to assume the Barbary lion [were] extinct. This
almost became a reality, as a concentration of many animals makes the
individuals more susceptible to disease which hit the royal lions hard in the
late 1960s.

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To conclude, King Hassan II decided to reduce the risk and improve

life for the lions They got a new enclosure in Temara, near Rabat, to house
the royal lions, and in 1973, under the administration of the Ministry of
Agriculture, this became Rabat Zoo.
My mother has taught me never to boast, but I cant help informing my
reader that I got the third best grade in the class for my research paper on
Moroccan Lions and Kings.

Boadicea
My grandfathers sister, Boadicea, has seen Barb more than both of us.
I cant call her wild by the time she makes the journey to Boadicea. I imagine
wild lions to be tranquil survivors like the lone lion at the Bou Regreg.
Boadicea only knows Barb to be raw, hungry, a savage beast. Her walls are
comforted by roars, whimpers, and hoarse shouts. They are painted with
warm blood and scratched with steel swords and dented shields. Her spine
brushes with excited shivers as the crowds of the Coliseum cheer over a
fallen gladiator being devoured by Barb. There is a reason Boadicea
welcomed so many North African lions into her holding pens. Of course it was
cheap for the wealthy game makers, who comfort their bottoms on her
cushioned seats, to import thousands of lions from a place of close proximity.
But Boadicea was instead impressed by the lions appearance.
Their southern ancestors, what Baba calls a boring lion, cannot
compete with the Barbs majesty. There rests a spot on her higher occiput, or

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back of head that could harness a crown because it is pointed. The longer fur
of the male not only covers the head, neck, and shoulders as it does with the
boring lion, but drapes as a robe behind the shoulders and covers the belly.
Just as any proud Moroccan predator, home to the Atlas Mountains, Barb
claims the largest size of all subspecies. Needless to say, she made an
impressive mound of carnage in Boadiceas stomach, her gladiator pit.
The wealthy class seems to always have international allies: friends as
if collected from the different corners of the globe. They display their
collection of friends on a mantle of extravagant stories, letters, and travels.
Boadicea always boasts of her foreign acquaintances. In a story most likely
fabricated from her imagination, she told a tale of one of her long lost
cousins, Bridgette.
Boadicea mostly brags about her cousins riches. As one might
imagine, spending time with Boadicea is exhausting. Her outlandish
comments on politics and gossip make any adult feel the child-like urge to
talk back. Baba has always warned me to hold my tongue when visiting with
Boadicea. Usually this is particularly difficult with her outspoken thoughts on
our Berber culture, but one evening, Boadicea was not pompously boasting
or shooting snide comments at others; it seemed for once she was speaking
with facts rather than opinions. Its hard to tell if this was the effect of our
Moroccan wine, but intriguing tales of her friend Bridgette seeped out.
Bridgette

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Just like Boadicea, Bridgette lived on the other side of the fresh, blue
waters of the Mediterranean. But I take it the men must hike the sparkling
sea, scale a narrow channel, and endure a climb up a river to rest on her
steps and reach The Tower of London. The tale told by Boadicea has nothing
to do with the ghosts that haunt Bridgettes stone cold chambers. Nor does it
recount the last dying breath of her helpless prisoners. It was about
Moroccos very own backyard predator.
She went on to describe all sorts of animals that Bridgette has not only
seen, but has sheltered in her menagerie. There was King Henry IIIs arctic
bear, whatever that is, which occasionally went fishing in the Thames.
Boadicea claims that the Holy Roman Emperor diplomatically delivered three
leopards as a gift to Bridgette grasp. There were elephants of course, but my
ears perked up when she spoke of the royal lions, which make their home in
Bridgettes barbican or The Lion Tower.
She had quite a collection of lions: one Cape lion (South Africa), two
Bengal lions (Northern India), one Senegal lion (Western Sub-Saharan), and
six representatives of Barbs blood line.
The Rabat Zoo tickets go for 8 dirham for adults and 6 dirham for kids.
In the eighteenth century, guests to Bridgettes menagerie had the choice
between paying three half-pence or a dog or cat in the flesh to feed to the
Barbary lions. Over the next couple of centuries the animals began to die or
relocate. But the lions and a select few stayed. The barbarys barbican was
their home. But in 1835 everything changed.

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A scream came from, Bridgettes barbican. The man responsible for the
scream stumbled from her barbican with hands stained orange from
Bridgettes rusty gates and dyed red from the blood dripping down his
forearm. It took a while for the keeper to calm the ghostly pale man, but
Bridgette did not have to wait for the keeper to recognize the deep nip of a
lion. Barb lost her home again. She was removed forever from Bridgettes
barbican.
While hearing the stories of Baba, Boadicea, and Bridgette, it is
obvious that the animal trade is a large part of the human economy. All
nations wanted to share footing with Moroccos famous predator. Some zoos
happily lied about their lions: claiming their lions were the same nationality
as Barb, but in truth no zoo or park knew for sure if their lions were related to
the kings and queens of Morocco. When Barb leaves the borders of Morocco,
she has no royal status, no sultan to protect. She is exposed and hurt. She is
spread too thin in untrustworthy homes and environments.
Nebraska
Many believe the operating room to be an unmotherly room coated
with the smell of sterilizing chemicals and large latex gloves. The slippery
stainless steel table and the matching medical cabinets, surgical cart, and
pointed prodding tools give the occupants no homey feeling. Its alright with
me that no human wants to spend considerable time in my operating room.
If it is sleep they seek, there are cushioned living rooms and hospitable
hotels, if it is food they wish to find, they can eat at any number of

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restaurants down the street. The reason the humans come to me, the reason
they come to my clinic is because of my brain and eye, my OR. That
unmotherly stainless sterilized capsule is a place of focus and accuracy. No
art work, no windows, no curtains, no distractions: bare walls.
It was July of the year 1966. Today was special. It was the fifteenth.
They wheeled in a table too large for my operating room. They unfolded four
extra sheets. The shoes of all the doctors and nurses squeaked and skidded
more than usual, as they bustled around preparing my veterinarian sterilized
chamber. In my waiting room, one little girl and her mother traced their way
out of a maze with a green crayon as they waited for their little kitten to
return from its examination room. On his way to the now blue crayon tic-tactoe game in my waiting room, the nurse delicately held the little kitten which
suffered from a cough. In the hall they both passed a team of nurses and
doctors wheeling in a one-hundred eighty-five pound lion.
Besides the occasional extra feisty pet cat, we dont get many lions
here in Hastings, Nebraska. A lion is enough of a celebrity to my halls, but
she isnt an ordinary lion. She came from Morocco. At my nursing station I
heard them say she is a rare breed of lion, on the knifes edge of extinction.
Her name was Barb.
It was July of the year 1966. Today was special. It was the sixteenth. To
keep the pile of fur and muscle from outperforming the scratchy pet cats, the
lion is administered 2 cc. of diluted Trilafon and 35 gr. of diluted Nembutal to
stay unconscious. My bright white lights display the bilateral compound

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fracture as if it were a piece of art on display. With a complicated injury like

this, Barb could not hold her own tongue inside her mouth, she couldnt eat.
In my tongue, the clinic lobby, one of the zookeeper explained to the
receptionist that the lions jaw had been entangled in the fence only one
week after Dr. Westbrook from Sargent, Nebraska had purchased the lion
from a city zoo in Morocco, called Casablanca.
Normally, the buzz of the shaving clippers to remove hair around the
surgical area is easily heard in the silence of my OR, but today all the doctors
profusely communicated. After concordance is achieved among the team of
doctors, a 3-cm incision is made about 2 cm below the right mandible border.
The rest of the surgery seems to me a blur. With the continuous talking and
the use of a range of words I do not recognize from any domestic pet surgical
cases. I am left unhelpful in recounting medical details. The lions fracture
appears to be patched with a bar made of quick-curing polymer resin,
fastened to the bone with four large stainless steel screws to match the
cabinets.
I am not present during the Barbs pain. I am not present during Barbs
recovery. I exist at the moment when time halts and seconds become hours.
One slip of a scalpel, one complication decides if Barbara lives or dies. I have
seen many animals die. Once, a basset hound came in after being attacked
by a coyote. The piston injected the chemicals to stop his heart just as fast
as they had decided he was a goner. Sitting beside Barb, lies a piston with
five times the killing capability than the basset hounds dessert.

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After one week on operating room time, six hours in real time, the lion
came out of surgery with a full recovery ahead of her. The doctors
congratulate each other on a medical breakthrough; there was talk of a soon
to come published paper on the complex procedure performed on one of
natures rare treasures. Based on their faces, I could see the zookeepers
were thrilled. Barb attracts markets of people at Westbrook Wild Animal Park.
Everyone wants to see a Moroccan lion. The doctors, with gobs of leftover
satisfaction from surgery, wonder if they will meet more Barbary lions. The
zookeepers shake their heads and say in duet with a chuckle We just have
her and the one male Southern African lion, you know, the ones from the
safari. The little I know about pedigree and genes from those barking best
friends makes me think that the cubs of my saved lioness will not carry her
name; not if she will be courting the Southern African lion. They will be just
like one of the doctors on our staff. Dr. Fletcher-Baker, all dark tinted from his
honeymoon in the sun, returned with a hyphenated name. The cubs will be
Dr. Barbary-Southern.
It was July of the year 1966. Today was different. It was the
seventeenth. Barbara died suddenly.
Tahar
Its not like I can be angry at the humans for destroying Barbara. Barb
lost her habitat because of expansion. Before we were buildings we were
materials. We had important qualities like structure, strength, presence. But
its not until humans mix in creativity and design that we gain our

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consciousness. Some buildings involve a little more innovation than others,

but it is always the architect who gives our materials a voice, it gives us the
chance to tell a story about what we love. Without expansion, my friends,
family, and I would not exist. I thank you Barbara for sacrificing yourself for
my ancestors and my future children. Buildings and humans have this in
common I guess. We put up the parking lot.
Holding onto biodiversity has an intrinsic value. Barbara wont ever
find me a better job. She wont ever bring me a cup of tea nor will she
directly help me reach any of my extrinsic goals. But her presence helps me
in an immeasurable way. Knowing that there is a corner of the globe where
something different can live happily, makes my door frame smile. So how
can we, buildings and humans, preserve those that serve us intrinsically?
I have heard of the Atlas Project. Smart scientist humans put their
architect minds together and develop a map of genes and traits to try and
bring back our lost friend. Its been thirty years and they risk inbreeding, but
the finish line is well worth the effort. I think the name of the project is cool.
Its like a secret mission name from the European and American spy movies.
Lets have many projects in the future with fancy stealthy names, like
Greengo Fire Project or Mission Sandstorm Tornado. Theres a reason my
ticket stand is at the beginning of the zoo. If I were to set up within, then
people might forget to pay. Why spend time naming the projects of the future
that will bring the biodiversity back when we can name projects that will

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preserve it while it exists? It appears Barbara has walked through the zoo
and forgot to pay.