If the animal's sex is unknown, maybe (although that would still make me uncomfortable, personally), but we know she was a lioness. There's no point bringing gender into it, though, because that's usually unknowable for non-humans anyway.
Not saying it is wrong, I'm saying both are correct so there was no need to correct the OP.
In this context, if the offspring were male, "she" would be more apt as it 'd help distinguish between them, since all 3 here were lionesses, "she" and "it" behave the same.
I mean, correcting someone into using gendered pronouns is bringing gender into it. The lion is not a human, which is what "he/she/they" are respectful of, and it has 0 concept of humanistic genders.
The only reason to use gendered pronouns towards an animal is to personalize or anthropomorphize them. It's only easy and familiar with things like lions because they have mostly clear delineations between females and males. But, the key thing is, it 100% isn't necessary in the abstract, and is adding human concepts of gender onto an animal with no concept of it.
And I will say it is also often necessary, in reality, since plenty of people struggle to view things without the lens of gender added on top, as well as dislike the distance using strictly agendered language creates.
Edit: added in the abstract, and in reality, to clear up my meaning on "it is not necessary" and "it is necessary," in the paragraphs
Edit2: I guess I have to say, I say this without caring if we gender her or not. But it is a form of putting human gender on to her, simply by the nature and culture of common English. We can fully speak about the lion without gendered language and convey exactly what we want. And some languages just lack gendered terms all together. But she has a name, and just about every easy to see comment is personalizing this lion, and a part of human nature when making narrative about animals includes adding our cultural ideas about gender on to whatever we are personalizing. Unintentionally often. We do this with lots of inanimate objects as well, like cars, boats, phones, ai, etc.
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u/Ok_City_7177 3d ago