“DO YOU SEE IT? (He’s) petting it. Do you see it?” an incredulous male voice asks, as a tourist is seen opening the door of a vehicle, reaching out an arm and attempting to stroke a passing lioness. “This is… not good.”
This video circulated on social media earlier this year, showing a man on safari in the Serengeti who wanted a very close encounter. The lioness shrugged him off, but it could have easily gone horribly wrong.
It’s far from a one-off. I recently saw another video showing an impatient driver attempting to motor along a road where a pride of lions was resting, running over one individual’s tail and causing the lion to spring up and attack the vehicle in self-defence. And yet another in which a leopard cub was allowed to almost climb into the open doors of a safari van, even though its protective mother was not far away, so a photographer could get a close-up. There are hundreds more examples of people doing brainless things around wild and dangerous animals, from taunting tigers to picking up rattlesnakes.
Idiocy around wildlife risks the safety of both people and
