DENVER - international airport U.S. agriculture and customs officials have completed their inspection and now crates carrying 25 lions rescued from small traveling circuses in Bolivia are being unloaded.

The animals, ferried to Colorado by Animal Defenders International’s Operation Lion Ark, are en route to the Wild Animal Sanctuary near Keensburg.

About 100 ADI and sanctuary volunteers, media and law enforcement officials met the Bolivian cargo plane at United Airlines’ maintenance hangar at the north end of Denver International Airport.

“This has been a dream for so long for us, to empty a whole country of its circus animals,” said Jan Creamer, president of the animal-rights group, as she exited the plane.

“We could not have done it without the support of Jorja Fox and Bob Barker. The lions are oging into a life that they have never dreamed of.” The crates carrying the lions are being transferred to a fleet of waiting animal transport trailers that will take the animals to a lionhouse and 80 acre enclosure at the sanctuary created especially for them.

The lion area includes a fabric-covered structure with eight fenced-in and sodded enclosures where the Bolivian lions first will live indoors, acclimating themselves to Colorado’s weather, while work is finished on four separate 20-acre, open-air habitats that will surround the building.

Barker, former host of “The Price is Right” game show and a longtime animal-rights activist, contributed about $150,000 toward the construction of the facility.

This afternoon Barker said he found it “mind-boggling” that ADI had managed to champion legislation making circus animals illegal in Bolivia and then was able to complete such a massive rescue of animals, who range in age from cubs to adults.

Barker said he has donated about $2 million to ADI’s work and expects to make another contribution to fund future campaigns.

“My only hope is that this will open the door to putting circuses out of business, as far as animals are concerned, in other countries,” Barker said.

Fox, a star of the TV drama “CSI,” said she joined ADI as an ambassador because the international organization has a “hands-on, roll up your sleeves, get dirty approach animal rescue work” that appealed to her.

Many of the animals have lived their lives in cages on the back of lorries. Although the animals still will be captive, Fox noted that they will be roaming on “99.9 percent more acres” than some of the animals had ever lived in before.

“Some of these animals have never set foot on grass,” she said.

Alexandra Cardenas, global campaigns manager for Lost Angeles-based ADI said the organization now will begin to focus on passing a laws in Peru and Brazil similar to the one in Bolivia.

“The momentum is in Peru for legislation, and also in Brazil,” she said. “That’s our focus right now.”

The animals spent more than nine hours on the flight, but ADI veterinarian Dr. Mel Richardson, who flew with them, said the lions appeared to have weathered the travel well.

As the cargo doors on the Transportes Aereos Bolivianos plane were opened, lions roared and Denver Police officers armed with rifles stood toward the back of the gathered crowd.

As the crated animals were unloaded, they moved in closer.

“We are just here for protection,” one officer said, adding that they did not anticipate that any of the animals would escape from the steel crates.