May 3, 2012
Lioness at the zoo wants to eat a baby
At the zoo in Portland, Oregon the usually lazy lioness, Kya, tries desperately to eat my son through the glass. Jack is coincidentally dressed like a baby zebra in his black and white striped hoodie. He is brave though and calls her “kitty kitty”. That’s my boy.
(via @evilray, Laughing Squid)
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Wow… that’s quite scary actually.
To be fair, whenever I go to the zoo, I just want to eat all the animals.
lol
Ohhhh, Portland…. How I miss you…
F*ckin ell! I’ve never seen an animal behave like that in a zoo… they’re usually so accustomed to and bored of humans..
I think that might be the problem. If she or the exhibit is new she probably isn’t used to not being able to break through the glass to eat whatever looks delicious on the other side. Dallas got a new exhibit about a year ago and my friend has some AMAZING pictures of her three little boys sitting in front of the glass smiling with the lions jumping and charging at the glass to get them.
I think that might be the problem. If she or the exhibit is new she probably isn’t used to not being able to break through the glass to eat whatever looks delicious on the other side. Dallas got a new exhibit about a year ago and my friend has some AMAZING pictures of her three little boys sitting in front of the glass smiling with the lions jumping and charging at the glass to get them. Now that they’re used to it they’ve calmed down.
I would be scared if that happened to me now! And I’m 22. Brave kid.
the lioness acted the way it did because she thought that the baby was a small zebra. notice the stripes on the jacket of the baby, that resembles a zebra’s stripes. this means that the lioness was not bred in captivity hence, it was caught from the wild, and is missing the hunt for food.
also, the kid is still very young. it should have scared it, but the baby was not a frightened baby, he’ll turn out to be brave and adventurous. awesome kid. any other kid would cry because of the sight of the paw and the widened mouth with sharp teeth. :)
If she was new then it may have had nothing to do with his outfit. Dallas got a new lion exhibit with glass walls like this and the lions tried to break through to eat anyone on the other side, no matter how they were dressed.
Omg
Whoa! I wish I’d been there for that! Haha
The problem with exhibits like this for predators, featuring glass walls where people can get right next to the animal, is that the animal looses all it’s natural reserve around humans. (While the lioness was focused on the toddler, it had to be aware of the adults standing just behind him) Familiarity breeds contempt. That makes it harder for the Zoo staff to work with them, and increases the risk that someone is going to get hurt should there be any actual contact. We all know how the story goes; unless it’s a Killer Whale at Sea World, injured human = dead animal.
Can you back up your statement that “familiarity breeds contempt” when it comes to animal-human interaction?
The cat just wants to get to what it sees as abandoned young, these things have come up in different situations and the lionesses just pick up the children and basically try to take care of them like their kittens.
hahaha…. I love parents with a sense of a humor!