After Kurt’s tiger encounter, we took a game drive around the property. The Farm Inn does a lot of lion breeding as well as retirement, so there were a variety of young and old cats on the tour.
This young white lion is not an albino. Our game tour guide explained that like hair color or eye color in humans, white fur is simply a recessive gene. I, for one, didn’t know this, and assumed most white animals are albinos.
Among the animals on the grounds are some retired circus lions, one of which is this seemingly aggressive female in the following videos. The guide explained that in the circus she was trained to growl and charge on command to elicit big reactions from the crowd. He told us that she grew accustomed to getting the reaction from people so that even when she retired, as soon as enough people are gathered around her enclosure she repeats her performance to make the crowd react.
I reacted by pooping my pants.
As usual, I forgot to hit the record button until it was almost over, so you only have a snippet of one of her outbursts.
.
.
I also included a video of three of the lions we saw, so you can see just how large their enclosures are, that they choose to come interact with visitors, and just how close visitors are to these cats during the tour.
.
.
Will share the rest of the photos of Farm Inn tomorrow.
In the meantime, enjoy these little videos of the former circus lion “entertaining” her audience…
Love, Marla
