Yesterday, if you could look past Caitlyn taking over the internet, you might have come across the story of the American tourist mauled to death by a lioness at the Lion Park just outside of Johannesburg.
The woman, 22, was driving through the park with her window open when the lioness attacked, fatally wounding her and inflicting serious injury to the second tourist in the car, an American man. News.com.au reports:
“There was a car driving to the lion camp and the lion did come through the window and bite the lady,” Scott Simpson, operations manager of The Lion Park venue told Talk Radio 702.
“The ambulance arrived quite soon, but the lady had passed away.”
The park has been in the news a number of times over the past few years due to attacks on tourists. March this year saw an Ozzie tourist injured when a lion jumped through his open window and mauled his legs.
Just two days after Brendan was attacked a 13-year-old South African was attacked by a cheetah whilst riding through the park, and 2013 saw another attack which left a man with minor injuries.
As you can imagine social media was not kind to the American woman who passed away, generally going the angle of ‘what the hell was she expecting’? It should be mentioned that tourists are greeted at the entrance by this sign:
The good news is that the lioness will not be put down, with this from TimesLive:
…the animal will be removed from its pride and relocated in an enclosure in the park where it will no longer have contact with visitors…
Animal behaviour experts said it would be unfair to punish the big cat. Lion “whisperer” Kevin Richardson said the lioness had reacted instinctively and cautioned against taking punitive measures.
“She acted like a lion. She did nothing wrong. You can’t blame the lion.” he said.
With that in mind let’s stop being so nasty to this poor woman. It’s not like you and I haven’t failed to heed a sign erected for our own safety at some point in our lives, y’all take it easy now.
