One piece of very solid advice is to steer clear of the offspring of any large and potentially dangerous animal. You hear this said of bears all the time. It certainly goes for lions, too.
They call Kevin Richardson the “Lion Whisperer,” and for good reason! He’s an animal behaviorist from South Africa who runs a wildlife sanctuary and he really knows his way around lions. Richardson has written a book and appeared in a number of documentaries, all part of his effort to alert the general public to the urgent need to protect and preserve African wildlife. He’s worked with cheetahs, leopards and hyenas, but lions are his real specialty. Rather than attempting to dominate a lion, he establishes a relationship based on love and respect. He can really only do this with lions that he’s raised from birth. With lions like these, he can cuddle and play and even take naps next to them! But don’t try this yourself. Richardson is quick to remind people that he has years of experience working with lions and, at least as importantly, has carefully developed trusting relationships with individual lions.
A female lion at Richardson’s sanctuary had given birth a week before. Now he decided it was time to drop in and see how mom and the kids were doing. He starts out by greeting the new mom. Their interaction is unbelievable! In some respects, the lion acts a lot like a house cat that’s happy to see its favorite human. The difference here is that the cat probably weighs more than he does. On to meet the cubs…
We’ve posted the amazing video below. Check it out and you’ll see what happens when Richardson makes his first attempt to bond with the cute little lion cubs.
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