Walking Amongst the Lions

Near Livingstone, there is a sanctuary that helps rehabilitate captive-bred lions and prepare them to raise wild offspring. My limited understanding of the program is that in order to increase the number of lions, which are dangerously close to being put on the endangered species list, many lions are bred in captivity. Being bred and raised in captivity increases the likelihood that the lion cubs will survive the many dangers that face them, including the male cubs being killed off by their own fathers to protect their territory.


The captive-bred lions go through three stages. In Stage One, the lion cubs walk through the bush with the participants in the program, learn socialization habits, and learn to hunt. In the second stage, the lion cubs are put in a larger area, where they no longer have any human contact. In this stage, they further hone their hunting skills, but do not have any competitive species. When the captive-bred lions graduate to Stage Three, they are put in an even larger area with competitor species. In this area, the lions are essentially wild. Those that were captive-bred start having their own cubs and raising them “wild”. Once those cubs are old enough, they are released into the wild as part of repopulation programs. The captive-bred lions live the rest of their lives in the “wild” conditions of Stage Three and die a natural death. They cannot be released into the wild because of the contact that they had with humans when they were young. We were able to participate in two separate portions of the Stage One program: walking with the lions and hunting with the lions.

In the morning, we walked with them through the bush. Both during and after the walk, we were given an opportunity to sit with and pet the lions. It was a little too easy to forget that these sweet kitties are powerful and deadly predators.

We were reminded of that fact later that night, when we went hunting with the lions. The process was quite interesting. The lion’s handlers, who the lions treat as parents, ride in a car making whistling noises and pointing out animal herds with an red light. When the lions see the herd, the car hangs back just like the lion’s actual parents would have hung back if they were teaching their lion cubs to hunt. Our lions, three lionesses, were not very successful. One caught a rabbit. Watching them run after the wildebeests was quite beautiful, though. Afterwards, the program treated us to candlelight dinner and s’mores.