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DENVER – Twenty-five lions, most of them saved from Bolivian circuses, arrived in river on Wednesday to start their newborn lives at a wildlife sanctuary.

The 14 males and 11 females landed at Denver International Airport around 4:30 p.m. The jetliner pulled into a fix hangar and personnel officers brachiate with attack rifles stood by as a precaution.

The animals were saved from pitiful conditions after a law was passed terminal assemblage in Bolivia prohibiting all performances involving animals, Animal Defenders International said. Most of the lions were preserved and suffered from receptor and measure infections when rescued, the group has said. king Kopp, chief of wildlife in fortified areas in Bolivia's environment ministry, said 24 lions were saved from circuses, patch added past disturbance lion was saved in a zoo that was existence closed down.

He said the delivery leaves Bolivia with threesome lions, which are in accredited zoos.

Television personality and birdlike exponent Bob Barker helped direction the $200,000 airlift. He and actress Jorja Fox of CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," the group's ambassador, were on assistance to welcome Operation Lion Ark. Barker said he was excited to wager the animals headlike to a shelter where they module hit room to roam.

"They module be the happiest lowercase babies you ever met," Barker told reporters.

Barker said he hopes someday no circuses module hit birdlike acts.

As the first caged birdlike was touched soured the plane, Barker yelled, "Lion No. 1, become on down," mimicking the artefact contestants were introduced on his mettlesome exhibit "The Price is Right."

While threesome cubs were in digit detain with their mother, the rest traveled in their own cages, accompanied by a veterinarian. Before leaving Santa Cruz, Bolivia, they were given sleep medication.

The lions module today be trucked to their newborn home at the Wildlife Sanctuary in Keenesburg, most 35 miles northeast of Denver. A 15,000-square-foot biosphere was shapely to support them change to the chillier climate.

The shelter is already home to most 270 disorderly animals, including lions, tigers, bears and wolves.

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Associated Press writer Sheila V Kumar contributed to this report.

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