Dinari, a 17 year old lion, was euthanized on Wednesday, leaving the Lion enclosure at Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo empty for the first time in years.
They’re reportedly going to replace him sometime soon. The Lion enclosure is pretty neat, being decorated with hexagonal columns like those from Fingal’s cave or The Giant’s causeway.
This getting old business sucks. RIP, kitty cat.
A 17 year old male lion is like a human over 100 years old. A typical male lion in the wild lives around 10 to 14 years and closer to 10 because of conflicts with other male lions. He had a long and well cared for life. 
a few, slightly different life-choices, and an influencer in the UK could still be alive …
From the cited article:
Recent blood work pointed to signs of chronic renal failure.
Just like so often happens for our little resident felines. I wonder if this is a captivity problem, or if wild felids develop kidney issues if they don’t die of something else first?
I thought I’d heard from my sister (the cat fiend) that leukemia is extremely commonplace in household cats.
Renal problems are common in house cats, too. A couple of ours had kidney issues, and our last cat, Hestia, died as a result of renal failure.