Wow

[notyoueither]

Watch what this guy does with lions and hyenas, and his distrurbing message...

[-Jrabbit]

14:43? Sorry, not that bored.

[The Mad Monk]

Get bored, dude. at least three minutes' worth.

[notyoueither]

14:43? Sorry, not that bored.

He cuddles and plays with wild lions and hyenas. Their response to him, including that of male lions, is extraordinary (to put it mildly).

He warns that he sees lions gone from the wild within ~20 years if people don't do better at protecting them.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Awesome.

[Alexander's Horse]

Of course many people will follow this guy just see him get his head bitten off one day.

There was a similar nutter communing with kodiak bears until one day one of them got hungry and ate him.

[notyoueither]

I've heard of people living among bears. They tend to keep their distance and are very careful.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Ahh we will all die one day, I know of one Russian "naturalist" who was very friendly with their bears and after 35 years, it finally cost him, but he was in his 60's already so... it is almost a moot point, with animals, like with people if you get too close you can get burned, with the issue that such large predators are physically stronger than you and if they get pissed that could be quite uncomfortable.

Still I for one would not think this would even be possible at all, just shows what we are capable of. We people can connect, but most of us focus on using things rather than forming relationships.

[Uncle Sparky]

and the lion shall lay down with the lamb, but the lamb won't get much sleep... Woody Allen

[regexcellent]

Lions have lost most of their habitat because they actually eat people. I don't care that this fellow has managed to take a picture of himself laying against one. They are legitimately dangerous animals and until fairly recently in African history children regularly got carried away by lions. There is a reason they were extirpated from Greece and Anatolia millenia ago. We can only tolerate their existence in designated preserves.

[Ban Kenobi]

It's still sad to see vicious man-eating monsters go extinct. I wish T-Rex was still around.

[notyoueither]

There may not be enough land preserved for them for the species to survive in the wild. That was sort of the guy's point in making the video. Thanks for highlighting that.

He doesn't just lay against one either. He mingles, plays with, and wrestles with the entire pride (including at least one male). Two of the females can be understood. From what he says he rescued them when they were dumped by their mother. Of course that leads one to conclude that he had been with the pride at that time.

[regexcellent]

The fact that he was not killed does not contravene the extensive body of evidence that lions do in fact kill people on a regular basis when they have the opportunity.

I suspect were it not for poaching lions' numbers would be quite stable.

[notyoueither]

Nobody ever suggested that lions can not and do not kill people. Was there a hidden memo that I missed?

I suspect that you are, once again, talking out of your ass. Habitat conservation has a great deal to do with species survival, especially for large and even more so for carnivorous species.

[Alexander's Horse]

The sign at the Sydney Lion Park once read "Keep your windows up at all times - Englishmen on bicycles free entry!"