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January 10, 2004
On a lighter note .....
Some years ago I used to live in a city on the coast of the Eastern Cape. Near the city was a small "safari park" which boasted several large "wilderness" enclosures in which the owners maintained a wide variety of animals including a small pride of lions, some cheetahs and one or two other predators of the large cat family. Most of these animals got used to the shiny motor cars and the flashing lights from funny things pointed in their direction by these strange and noisy "animals", but it was the lions who developed their own form of entertainment.
They discovered that you could catch motor cars. And they were fun to play with. But not just any car. Oh no! Only the best would do. They would ignore the family saloons, the beaten up VW campers and combi's, the Beetles and even the 4x4's. It was the Mercede Benz and top range BMW's they liked!
The trick was one of the lioness' would lie or stand in a part of the road where the driver could not get past her. Then the rest of the family would arrive. Papa lion liked to take the tyres off - after removing the shiny hubcaps of course! The others would chew off the trim around the headlights, the tail light clusters and any body trim they could pry loose, sometimes even removing the windscreen wipers and then lying on the bonnet to stare into the windcreen purring loudly and drooling gently while they sized up the occupants.
It got to the point where the owners posted notices, tried to discourage people in expensive cars and even escorted them. But there isn't a lot that you can do that will discourage a lion or lioness who's sassed out the weakness in your argument!
About the only way the keepers could effect a rescue was to draw the lions off with food to a holding area while the occupants of the car were removed and the vehicle retrieved.
Anyone want to bet this wasn't what Leo and his family had figured out? If this isn't an example of animals manipulating their so-called superiors then I don't know what is.
Posted by The Gray Monk at January 10, 2004 07:25 PM