Bahati (rear) and Jasiri both chose the red New England Patriots cake
Bahati, the Dallas Zoo’s 10-month-old lion, chose New England over Pittsburgh to win the Super Bowl on Feb 4.
Zoo dietitians made two delicious cakes of evaporated milk, ice, blood meat with food coloring in team colors to represent the two teams. Both Bahati and her aunt, Jasiri, headed directly to the New England red cake and began licking. Bahati even took the scrumptious blood-flavored football, whose laces were made with Jell-o, and munch on it in the grass.
One zookeeper assured me that the lions loved the cakes.
“If you’re a lion, it’s tasty,” she said.
Bahati was born on St. Patrick’s Day in 2017. She weighted about 2½ pounds at birth and about 20 pounds when she went on exhibit in May. She’s up to about 140 pounds now. According to Dallas Zoo primate and carnivore curator Keith Zdrojewski, she should grow to about 250-260 pound like her mom and aunt by the time she’s a year-and-a-half to two years old.
For the last three years, a Dallas Zoo animal has chosen the Super Bowl winner correctly. Each year the Dallas Zoo asks a different animal to choose and African penguins, mini longhorns and Galapagos tortoises have all predicted correctly. On the other hand, Fort Worth Zoo animals have only gotten it right once over the past few years.
Bahati at 2 months
Bahati at 10 1/2 months
— David Taffet
