Here comes the lawsuit.
This is why it’s important to have a couple of convenient, disposable kids in the car with you.
It’s a horrible thing to have happen and I’m glad the lioness is not going to be destroyed but separating her from her pride may still be harmful to her well-being. I can only imagine that there’s not much you can do when a full grown lioness jumps through a car window and grabs you, most likely by the neck or head. There’s no where to go and nothing you can do.
I have to wonder though, it’s a given that people will do stupid things and not follow directions, so why don’t they equip these cars with extra protection, such as removing the ability to open the windows or covering the window openings with bars or wire? Granted there will likely still be stupid people that will think the bars will protect them and they may open the window and try to feed the animals but they may only lose their fingers or hand in that scenario and not their lives.
“Objects inside the window may be closer than they appeared.”
The car didn’t belong to the park, but to the people involved. (The news report says it was their “own car.”) Presumably it was the guide’s car, although possibly he was driving the client’s car or it was a rental.
A guide might possibly modify their own car if this was a regular part of their tour, but since this one had his own window open I doubt he would have considered it necessary.
I agree that this was primarily the fault of the guide, since the park seems to have adequately signposted and otherwise warned against leaving windows open. (It’s possible that park staff could have been more vigilant about the violation, but they may have lowered their windows when they were out of sight of staff.)
Street urchins are an endangered species.
Ah, I thought the park had its own cars to rent since it’s in Africa I figured not that many people would have their own cars and rental companies may not want to cover possible lion damage.
Looks like the victim is a special effects artist who worked on some pretty cool movies and TV shows, including Winter Soldier and Game of Thrones.
Maybe she thought the lions were CGI.
I’ll be going to Hell now.
The park is only an hour from Johannesburg and is essentially suburban. It’s surrounded by towns and roads. It’s only 20 acres. It’s a bit ridiculous to call a visit “going on safari” as some of the articles do. Most tourists or other people inclined to visit a safari park are going to have a rental car or their own vehicles.
Here’s a more detailed article on the attack. The woman was continuing to take pictures through the open window while the lioness approached to within a meter. With all due sympathy, I think she might be in the running for a Darwin Award.
This is the third big cat attack at the park in the last four months. The others involved another tourist with an open window, and a kid from a nearby slum who was attacked by a cheetah while riding his bike through the grounds. :smack:
Thanks, that article had a bit more detail about the park and what happened. Admittedly, I was picturing more of a safari situation.
I still think it’s weird that people would use their own cars and that they’d let people drive themselves. What if they panic and run over the animals?
That’s pretty standard even in similar parks outside Africa like Lion Country Safari in Florida andAfrican Lion Safariin Canada. (However, it’s not clear whether you actually drive among free-ranging lions in these.) I think it’s going to be pretty rare for anyone to panic and try to drive off fast enough to put animals at risk.
When I went to Kenya in 1985 I rented a vehicle something like this one (without the open roof) with two other guys and we drove ourselves around parks like Masai Mara and Samburu that had lions and lots of other game. While not common, it’s still possible to do self-drive safaris.
Cars are not that rare in South Africa. (When I think about my daily commute, sometimes I wish they were! :D) According to the latest stats I could find, just over 1 in 4 households in SA own a car.
As for rental cars, I guess occasional animal damage is part of the cost of doing business if you rent cars to tourists in a place where game viewing is the biggest tourist attraction.
Even many of the real game reserves (like the Kruger Park) allow you to drive yourself around in your own car - only on the established roads, of course, not through the bush even if you have a 4x4. It’s mainly the publicly-owned reserves that allow self-drive, AFAIK, not the exclusive private ones. I guess the benefit is that many more people are able to visit that way.
Would a rolled up window actually stop a full grown, hungry and/or angry lion?
I may have gone to this park. There are a couple of lion parks in the area, and judging from the map, it’s hard to tell. When I get home I’ll look up the photo data and see if it’s the same.
But, yeah:
[ul]
[li]Unless you’re poor, people in South Africa pretty much live like people in the western world, with the addition of walled compounds and crappy shopping hours. [/li][li]There have never been restrictions on rental car usage, and nothing in Pilanesburg was a challenge to my Focus.[/li][li]One of the managers traded his Ranger (and company-paid shop card) for my rental Mercedes one time, but there was nothing in Kruger that would have been to challenging for the Mercedes (Mercedes in South Africa is really rather like Mercedes in Germany, i.e., just a hum-drum, nothing special rental car). I did manage to get the Ranger stuck, but that was poor judgment for a great photo, and probably no one should have driven into the sand.[/li][li]Kruger has a lot of spots for caravaners (camper trailers). I’d like to try that, there. Some type of monkey tends to be a problem for people within these safe areas, though, with lots of warnings about properly securing one’s food.[/li][li]The Lion Park (the one I went to, if it’s the same) does have adequate signing and warnings. I was in local colleague’s personal car for the visit.[/li][li]The lions are fed at 12:00 pm or 1:00 pm. A truck with humans drives to the lion gathering area, the lions know it, and try to get on the truck (no patience). The employees drive them back, then push the dead gazelle or whatever off the back, and then drive off. So, yeah, the lions most definitely associate motor vehicles with food.[/li][/ul]
A lion could undoubtedly break a car window if it wanted to, but would rarely be motivated enough to try. Also, it might not be easy for it to figure out that it has to strike at what appears to be empty air in order to break it.
My thought that people wouldn’t have there own cars did not mean that I didn’t think people in Africa owned cars but that I figured most of the visitors to the park would be tourists.
There is a good book called Maneaterswhere the author explores all kinds of animals that go after humans. Lions, bears, tigers, wolves, leopards, pumas, crocodiles, sharks, etc…
The odd thing was the top was the leopard. One he said in India killed about 80 people including 2 professional hunters who were looking for it.
There was a Lion Country Safari in California (Orange County?) in the early 70’s we drove through. Pretty impressive seeing the animals from 10 feet away. Nobody had to tell us to keep the windows up (and the doors locked!).
There was a humorous signs on the surrounding fence announcing: “Trespassers will be eaten!”
35 years later, looking from an upstairs window into enclosure was a female lion 20 feet below me at some gas station in NC. The female looked up and locked eyes with me. I felt the hairs standing on the back of my head along with a cold sweat. JAQ is right, this is hardwired in our DNA. Apex is just word, sonny…
One of my college friends got to study lions in Tanzania in the 80’s. His father came out to visit him. So they went for a day trip to Ngorongoro Crater. They parked their vehicle beside a minor patch of grass to get some pictures–only to have a lion spring out of that “minor” patch three feet away from the vehicle when they shut the engine off.
Later my friend was working back at the research station. Some ill-informed tourist brought in an “abandoned” cub (in spite of the fact tourist are warned not to do this). His coworkers quickly figured out which pride it belong to and made plans to return it. This particular pride was hanging around a certain set of rocks in the park and it was getting dark (which happens fast near the equator). By the time my friend drove out to the rocks, it was black, moonless night. Carefully scanning the area with lights he checked to see if there were any lions in the area (the reflections of the lion eyes is a giveaway). Seeing none, my buddy parked the vehicle, grabbed the cub along with a flashlight and walked behind a large bush to place it out of view of the vehicle (so it wouldn’t follow him back). It’s all going according to plan and as he walks behind the bush…
His flashlight picks up 16 bright yellow-orange orbs from 20 to 25 feet away…
Oops.
He immediately places the cub on the ground and while watching it amble off towards the pride, slowly moves back trying to get the bush between him and the lions. This was followed by a rather fast and graceful backward walk to the vehicle located 50 feet away.
Lucky for him, the cub distracted the pride long enough to allow my friend to get back into the vehicle. Closing the door, the lions started emerging from behind the bush looking to “thank” him.
I’ve been to the Canadian one a few times and you do drive among free ranging lions and other big cats. There are separate fenced sections for different types of animals with different rules for each section on windows up or down. They also have rangers parked near the animals to remind the idiot tourists who inevitably ignore the rules to roll up their damn windows.
Looks like they had one incident in the 90’s with a tiger mauling a couple. No real details though since it was so long ago. I would imagine they had their windows down.