Lion makes meal of tyre

2007-08-16 23:05

Eagan Williamson

Pretoria - Lions are curious cats - just like domestic felines - and love to investigate - but they don't always realise how powerful they are.

That's the response of Doctor Paul Funston, a lion expert and lecturer at Tshwane University of Technology's department of nature conservation, to the recent spate of "lion attacks" on vehicles of people visiting private lion parks.

Beeld readers on Thursday told the newspaper about lions at a lion park near Krugersdorp that love to 'attack' tourist vehicles and demolish tyres.

Gert Moller is one Beeld reader who related his experience with lions at the Rhino and Lion Park at Kromdraai outside the town.

A young male lion made a meal of the tyre of another car during his visit.

The game warden tried to distract the lion by getting closer in a bakkie, but he ignored him and just kept on chomping on the tyre.

Trotted off for food

"They then came to feed the lions and he happily trotted off to get food."

Funston said it could be that the lions, compared to those in the wild, became too tame when they were kept in specific park areas and they grew used to the human factor in their midst.

"It's not unusual for lions in those parks to get quite close to vehicles and even hop onto them."

But he said visitors to lion parks should take great care, because they were still dealing with wild and dangerous animals.

"People should, for example, never open their windows to shoo the big cats away"

He added that the onus was on the park owners to try to regulate the behavioural patterns of the lions so that they never became too used to interacting with people or vehicles.

His guess was that the warm rubber smell of tyres could indicate why lions specifically went for vehicle tyres.

- Beeld