Man v. lion

[nekosensei]

This is a video I found earlier today and posted in _discussion. I thought it was interesting and deserved a post.

What it shows is a man confronting a lion, he convinces it that he's the dominant animal so it doesn't attack him. This reminds me vaguely of what Timothy Treadwell did with the grizzly bears; however, this guy seems to be a little more...how should we put it...balanced. Apparently, he's also been doing this for twenty-five years. My take on the matter is that the guy is very brilliant and more than a little crazy, but otherwise, it's a pretty neat video.

Also...part of me can't help thinking that this is actually more dangerous than what Treadwell did. From Grizzly Man, I got the impression that the bears were used to seeing Treadwell and were more curious than anything. On the other hand, the lion guy actually seems to purposely provoke the lions by encroaching on their territority...and it looks like the lions are getting more than a bit confrontational. So...in a sense...the guy is picking a fight and then backing off. Of course, it's been awhile since I've seen Grizzly Man and I'm better at reading cat behavior than bear. Maybe during Treadwell's interactions with them, the bears were giving off warning signals that I didn't pick up on.

Any thoughts out there?

Comments

[samcallahan.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Grizzly Man.

I have had the same experience with a slightly bigger animal. I grew up on a farm, and once bulls get past three years old, they start to behave much less domesticated. This one had escaped into the neighbors farm, as there were cows in heat over there, and I was separating him from the neighbors cows.

I had him far enough away that it was time to decide if he was going to be herded back into a pasture he couldn't escape from, or if he would try to get past me-- pretty much armed with a loud voice and a stick. We had a good thirty second look where we were measuring each other up for dominance.

I won.

In this case-- it's obvious that he knows the signals-- and hopefully he's smarter than the average lion-- so he probably feels much more in control than he looks.

[nekosensei.livejournal.com]

Well...I'm sure I've played "mind games" like this with my cat, but never with an animal that could tear me to shreds. That sounds like an exceedingly unpleasant way to go. And let's not forget that some cats, especially ones that are well-fed, tend to torment play with their prey before killing it...