Seventeen exhausted lions freed from their hard lives in a circus are parked on a road in a southern Indian city because a zoo has turned them away.

　　The lions were taken in trucks on a rough 600-kilometer journey from Sholapur city in the western Maharashtra state to a rehabilitation center in a zoo outside Bangalore, capital of the southern Karnataka state.

　　However, when the owners of the New Grand Circus brought the lions - 10 males and seven females - from Sholapur, the authorities at Bannerghatta Zoo refused, saying the premises were already overcrowded with animals brought by other circuses.

　　"We need an authorization letter for keeping the animals. Moreover, we can-not suddenly accommodate all the lions," Assistant Conservator of Forests N.L. Raghav said on Saturday.

　　"We will take a decision shortly on the fate of the lions. But the Central Zoo Authority should release funds for the upkeep of these animals," Raghav said. The authority is run by the Indian federal government.

　　The lions are currently in cages, stranded on the road outside the zoo.

　　Raghav said he had visited the lions and found them healthy, although tired after their long journey.

　　However, a private television channel reported that all the lions were sick and injured and were brought in cramped wooden trucks, in which two lions were squeezed in enclosures meant for one.

　　It showed pictures of small wounds on the bodies of many of the lions, and a veterinarian interviewed by the channel said some had maggots swarming in the wounds.

　　Hundreds of animals were given up by the circus owners after India's Supreme Court banned performances by wild animals in circuses.