Don’t try this at home. Or with your own Fido, not with Nala…

Bumpy ride at full speed, but nice to see.

Ready for a kill at any time.

Tame, you said?

Listen to Kevin explaining that the back of the ears have the smoothest fur.

Then, you’ll also be able to admire spotted hyena friend of Kevin (they aren’t cats, but they are much nicer than what you’d believe).

And remember what Kevin says at the end: “If we carry on along the same path, we’ll not see lions in twenty years”.

Is it really necessary to mention that you should not try this with lions not from your own home?

Honnestly, even understanding the rules which allow to reach this point, even firmly convinced by the scientific bases of this approach to inter-species contacts, I would not try it.

As a demonstration, here are a few videos showing Kevin since he moved from the status of friend of lions to honorary lion (like you could speak of a “honorary citizen”).

I let you admire the other anmials (hyenas, leopards) that also let him approach. But keep in mind that these are really big animals. Look at a male lion size. These are “Big cats”, indeed.

The critically endangered Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) has been well observed by the WWF-financed counting operation in Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve and Leopardoviy Federal Wildlife Refuge (Russia). This is very good news since the species is believed to count only about 50 animals in the wild. But the Russian traps appear to have allowed the observation of nothing less than 12 different individuals (instead of the 6 that were believed to live in the area).

Maybe the Amur leopard population is (very slowly) increasing.

The video shows a female and a grown-up cub, which may be a farily good indication that the reproduction may allow a slow recovery in this very small population of Amur leopards.