We may be high on the food chain, but we’re still food
During a visit to the Joburg Lion Park, experiences our fascination with deadly predators
INSTEAD of losing business after the recent fatal mauling of a tourist, the Lion Park in Johannesburg will probably experience a surge in interest.
Human beings love a bit of danger. And now, when your car rumbles over the cattle grid as you enter the enclosures, there is this new sense that you are entering the unknown.
There is also the intrigue of wondering which one of the lionesses is the one that did it, the one that obeyed what its genes, its very brain chemistry, implored it to do.
What happened at the park on June 1 was a tragedy. And whenever somebody dies in such a way, one of the first things people do is look for someone or something to blame.
First it was Katherine Chappell, who, despite all the signs warning her not to, rolled down her window. Then it was the tour guide, who some say should have been more aware of what was happening.
And there are probably some people, the same ones who think great whites should be culled because they eat surfers, who blame the lion.
I even heard someone calling the car’s electric window to account. Most windows have a safety mechanism that, if it senses resistance as the window is being wound up, will reverse and wind down instead on the assumption that somebody’s hand is on it.
In this case, it was a giant paw and everybody really wanted the window to keep going the way it was supposed to.
Conservationist and safari operator Ian Michler thinks the concept of a lion park itself is the culprit. He has been investigating and writing about these types of setups since 1999.
“Lions and other predators are being bred in captivity and under agricultural-type conditions for a variety of revenue streams that are for the benefit of the farmer or businessman,” Michler said.
“As far as I’m aware, there’s not a single project in this country, other than the South China tiger project in the Free State, that’s being run under proper scientific conditions and for conservation reasons.
“All the others are just commercial operations.”
According to Michler, one of the dangers is that lions become so habituated to humans that
KINGS OF THE JUNGLE: Yawning in apparent boredom, the animals in the Lion Park can appear sedate and unthreatening they lose their fear of us.
“As soon as that happens, they can attack you. If you get out of your car in the Okavango Delta or the Serengeti, a lion will run away from you because it has an instinctive fear of humans. As soon as that fear is lost, it is quite capable of going after you.”
Michler said it was therefore completely understandable that in an unnatural environment such as a lion park, there may be a “response” that ends up in the death of a human.
But what about the revenue a place such as the Lion Park creates, the jobs it provides? The park is Gauteng’s No 1 tourist attraction, open 365 days a year from 8.30am until 9pm. Newsweek lauded it as one of the “Top 100 Perfect Tourist Destinations in the World”, and pretty much every international celebrity who moves through the city on the way to a music concert or an acting job visits the place.
HEALTH WARNING: Not everyone obeys the signs
Even I, a jaded Gautenger, could not help but ooh and aah when I drove through the park this week. I had been to the place a few times before but had forgotten just how close you can get to the lions.
It was also strangely easy to see how you could be tempted to roll down your window just a touch because the lions look sedate, cuddly and harmless. So swept up are you by the magic of seeing these exquisite creatures up close, so comforted by the multiple fences surrounding the enclosures, by the tourist vehicles and the rangers, that you are lulled into thinking that nothing could possibly go wrong.
The only evidence of what came before is the locked gate of Enclosure 2 and a sign attached to it that reads: “Closed. Animal behaviourist at work. Our apologies for any inconvenience.”
I am also handed a pamphlet as I enter the main enclosure. “Important notice,” it says in capital letters. “Please be aware that wild animals are dangerous! Keep your windows closed and doors locked at all times whilst driving through our camps!!! Please take care of children in your car.”
In response to Michler’s comments, Scott Simpson, assistant operations manager at the Lion Park, said: “We’re not going to get drawn into an argument with conservationists about why we do what we do. If that’s [Michler’s] side of it, that’s absolutely fine, we respect that, but, especially in the light of the incident, we’re not going to start arguing about things like that now.”
And so, because we always have, we will continue to bring wild animals close to us. Because we always have, we will dress up monkeys and make them ride bicycles; we will teach elephants to stand on pedestals and cheer when a tiger, a natural predator, jumps through a ring of fire. Then we will continue to be surprised, outraged even, when one of them turns and draws human blood.
If there is anything to blame it is our species’s assumption, our conceit, that just because we have bigger brains, we are at the top of the food chain.
And it is an illusion against which no amount of warning signs, exclamation marks and tempered glass windows will ever protect us.
It’s an illusion against which no number of warning signs, exclamation marks and tempered glass windows will ever protect us