Walking with Lions

Walking and interacting with wild animals is an amazing and profound experience.  There are so many options - petting cheetah cubs, or lion cubs, visiting animal sanctuaries, with the possibility to pet the exotic creatures that live there.  Recently, I visited a cat sanctuary and the highlight was petting the fully grown cheetahs.  There must have been at least 50 people in the enclosure.  The cheetah looked positively shell-shocked.  What was supposed to be a fantastic happy experience was simply miserable.  As much as us humans get a thrill out of these up-close encounters they harbour a dark and miserable secret...

I am by no means an expert, but, we at Discovering Africa, and, our sister companies, including Thompsons Africa will not sell the Walking with Lions experiences that are all too available within Africa.  The reason is this:  Once the juveniles become too big, and pose a threat to the tourists, they are sold off and used in the canned hunting trade.  It is a despicable practice that I urge everybody to learn about in order to avoid inadvertantly supporting.

Please don't book Walking with Lions.

Some of the sanctuaries do fantastic work.  Please research very carefully the organisations that you support.

There is lots to know and understand and I feel that I have hardly begun to know....