Pet or Predator: The Deadly Consequences of Keeping Exotic Animals
What happens when a man tries to keep one of the deadliest creatures on the planet as a pet? Or when an Ohio man who has kept over 50 Lions in cages in his backyard decides he wants to unleash them on the town? Today, we're talking about the deadly consequences of people trying to keep wild animals as pets.
CW: Animal Abuse, Suicide
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SOURCES
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-452820/Christian-lion-lived-London-living-room.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10443537/What-happened-Christian-lion-Harrods.html
https://www.rd.com/article/only-animal-that-terrified-steve-irwin/
https://www.gq.com/story/terry-thompson-ohio-zoo-massacre-chris-heath-gq-february-2012
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/horrific-injuries-farmer-mauled-death-22022594
https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/harrods-pet-shop-elephant-lions-19948359
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6352375/Unseen-pictures-lion-cub-bought-Harrods-1969.html
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/can-captive-animals-ever-truly-return-to-the-wild
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/14/pet-hippo-humphrey-kills-owner
https://newsfeed.time.com/2011/11/15/humphrey-the-pet-hippo-mauls-his-owner-to-death/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37bdVccLILI
TRANSCRIPT
There’s a lot of grandiose sayings about Love. Love makes the world go round. Love is all you need. Love conquers all. There’s this idea that if you have love you don’t need anything else. It’s this magical cure all, a superpower. Well, my dearest listeners. I can tell you one thing love cannot do. It cannot domesticate a wild animal
But for some reason, some people truly believe that the power of love is enough to take a wild animal and turn it into a pet. Like in beauty and the beast, how Belle’s compassion and truly endless patience transforms a monster into a gentle prince. Well, pack it up walt disney because that is not how it works.
I want to start with a story that you may be familiar with. Maybe you’ve seen the video that made its rounds on social media a few years ago. It’s a video of two men being led into the African Savannah to visit a lion they once raised in the UK. Nervously, they wait as the lion, named Christian, slowly approaches them. Will he remember them, or will he attack? And then, in one of the sweetest moments ever captured on camera, Christian the lion recognizes his old owners and jumps all over them, forgetting he’s not a house cat.
It’s a cute story, I mean, I understand why the video has tens of millions of views. It’s proof that Love IS all you really need, even the largest, most vicious predator can be tamed by human affection.
Well, not really. When I first saw that video, I was skeptical at best. So I did some digging, and There’s a bit more to that story, parts that didn’t make it in the youtube cut.
Like how do two normal guys in London even end up with a lion?
Well, back in the day, Harrod’s, one of the most famous department stores in London, used to sell exotic animals. Starting in 1917, the store had a “Pet Kingdom” section where shoppers could pick up a panther or tiger alongside their coats and shoes.
Owning exotic pets was-and to some extent, still is- a symbol of wealth. The store also offered Alligators, elephants, and Lemurs amongst other animals.
But John rendall and Ace Bourke were not exorbitantly wealthy men. They owned a furniture store in London. And they were able to get together what would be 3 thousand pounds today to purchase a lion cub that they named Christian.
There were a few problems with this, the first being where do they put him? Lions need space, which is expensive in London. So he mostly lived in their apartment and the basement of the furniture shop.
They’d take him to a fenced in field to play, but as he got bigger and stronger, he’d get more rowdy. He started playing too hard, to the point where Ace and John would have to stand still, arms at their sides with their eyes down to stop Christian from getting too aggressive. This tactic worked, but it was becoming clear that a lion was not a good pet.
So they contacted a man named George Adamson who worked at reintroducing lions into the wild in Kenya, and George agreed to help Christian. But again, there were issues with this. Christian was a 5th generation lion born in captivity. His parents were both born in a zoo, their parents were born in a zoo, and so on. Lions learn survival skills from their mothers, and Christian had no role model on how to survive.
He also was raised around humans, and this is one of the worst things you can do to a lion. Lions need to be suspicious of humans, it’s what helps them not be poached. Adamson worried that christian was going to be an easy target, he’d most likely approach a poacher out of curiosity.
But even still, Adamson brought Christian into the Savannah of Kenya, and watched as he disappeared towards a group of lions
And then years later, John and Ace contacted him wanting to see how their old friend was doing. Adamson he seemed hesitant about the meeting. Christian was still out there in the savannah but He told the two men that Christian might not recognize them, so they needed to tread with caution. I mean, I get that. I once had a cat for 10 years and there were some days I swore it was like she had never seen me before. Cats are just… like that.
But adamson had some good news. He had been keeping track of Christian and insisted the lion was doing incredibly well. He had immediately integrated with the other lions, even becoming the leader of his pride. It helped that he was 500 pounds, making him much larger than most other lions. It seemed that his innate survival skills awoke once he was released into Kenya.
The men all made the hours long trek into the savannah, when they finally found Christian with his pride. After a few hours of luring Christian towards his former owners, the lion saw them and ran to be reunited, jumping all over them as if he were a kitten. That’s where we get that amazing youtube video.
This, I will say, seems to be an anomaly. You never know how a wild animal is going to behave in these situations, and I would argue that the two men were incredibly lucky. In 2020, a south african conservationist named Wes Mathewson was killed by lions that he had hand reared. He was out for a walk with two white lionesses he had been raising since birth when they attacked him out of nowhere.
But the story takes a little bit of a bitter turn. Shortly after their last reunion in 1973, Christian stopped getting along with the other lions. He was often involved in fights, and would spend most of his time by himself. He was last spotted in 1973 wandering off alone towards Meru National Park. Many believe he was ultimately killed by Poachers.
Adamson never gave up on Christian though. For the rest of his life he kept an eye out for the lion, and he swore some nights that he could hear his roar echoing through the savannah. But he never saw Christian again, and adamson was tragically murder by Bandits in 1989.
Wild animals need more than just love, and in today’s episode, I want to take you with me down the rabbit hole I explored after i saw the Christian the Lion video all those years ago. Stories of people who owned exotic animals, and their often disastrous end results. And just a heads up, Christian the lion is going to sound like a happy ending compared to the other ones I’m going to get into, so as always, listener discretion is advised.
Welcome to heart starts pounding, a podcast of horrors, Hauntings, and mysteries. I’m your host, Kaelyn Moore.
So I don’t know about you guys, but This has been a topic I’ve always been morbidly curious about. Maybe it was when Tiger King exploded in popularity that I really started to look into it. The cast of characters that got involved with the buying and selling of exotic animals was so strange and enticing, no wonder we couldn’t stop watching. And this might be controversial feel free to fight me in the comments, but I don’t think Carol baskin did anything wrong. I am a carol baskin apologist. She just wanted to help those tigers and her husband was found alive. Woo, ok i have to to stop because my face is getting hot.
But this episode is about the kind of people who buy exotic and wild animals, and what happens when they do. Spoiler alert, it typically doesn’t end well!
And as always, if you’re listening to the ad supported version of the show, thank you so much. Our sponsors make the show possible. And if you’re a member of the Rogue Detecting Society listening on patreon, thanks to you all as well. And if you’d like to listen on Patreon, remember. As of February 1st, that tier will be archived. Also, this Friday, our brand new $10 tier will be getting a heart starts pounding footnotes episode where I talk with our producer about this episode and tell some of the stories that wouldn’t fit. Footnotes is going to be a weekly show at the new tier–there will also be some other perks so make sure and check out the Patreon page for more info. The link is in the show notes.
We’re going to take a quick break, and when we get back, I’m going to dive into a story about a man who thought he could tame one of the most terrifying animals on the planet.
us Els never intended to adopt a hippo. I imagine most people don't. But when there was a flood in Free State, South Africa in the mid 2000’s he came upon a 5 month old hippo struggling to get free in a rushing river. If Marius didn’t intervene, surely the baby would die, and with no adult hippos around to intervene, Marius did what I think most people would do, and he scooped up the hippo, which was still small enough to be carried by an adult man. Though, juuuuust barely.
But something changed in him once he got the animal free. According to Marius, he felt an immediate bond with the creature, as if it had acknowledged that the man holding him was his savior. His friend. And so Marius named the little guy Humphrey, put him in the car, and drove him out to a farm that he owned.
A farm that contained other wild animals, like a giraffe and a rhino. And so maybe this is where Marius got the idea that a hippo would be no different. Plus, Humphrey was just a baby now, and he hardly looked like a predator. His eyes were big and glossy, and they’d look around at everything with curiosity. He also didn’t have any teeth yet, instead his mouth was soft and gummy. So it was cute when he’d walk over and chomp down on someone's leg. It didn’t look like he was, you know, PRACTICING MURDER.
Humphrey started growing, fast. A male hippo will grow, on average, to be 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) over the course of about 25 years, or half their life span. That’s the size of a compact SUV. And being that big doesn't really slow them down. They can run up to 30 km/h (19 mph) over short distances. The impact might feel similar to getting mowed down by a car full of kids heading to soccer practice, but I have a feeling you wouldn’t be conscious long enough to make that comparison.
Marius believed despite how fast Humphrey was growing he had enough space to keep the hippo happy. Humphrey spent a lot of his time in a small lake that was on the property. He loved his life, his owner insisted, as he continued to get closer and closer to the animal. Even going so far as jovially brushing Humphrey’s teeth once his razor sharp front fangs and back molars came in.
One could say that Marius didn’t know the risks of raising Humphrey, though that would be a stretch. At the end of the day, Hippos don’t care about people, and they’re not nice. They are responsible for the brutal deaths of 500 people a year, more than lions, elephants, leopards, rhinos and buffalos combined. Even if Marius was aware of that shocking statistic, which I fully believe he was, he clearly ignored it. A famous photo of him and humphrey shows Marius on the hippos back as he lounges in the lake, riding him like a horse, wearing a large smile.
An interviewer once asked Marius about that silly pose, and he jokingly said that when Humphrey was tired of Marius riding on his back, he’d buck him off like a horse. MY GUY.
Maybe if that was the only concerning behavior Humphrey was exhibiting, I’d forgive the hippo riding, but as the days went by and he got bigger and stronger, his behavior became more aggressive.
One day, in late 2010, a journalist went to Marius’s exotic animal enclosure to talk with him and get some footage of him and Humphrey, who was 5 years old at this point. In the footage, you can see Marius in the water, trying to mount a submerged Humphrey, only to be thrown off. He emerges from the lake laughing, as if this was a game they played.
The day itself went pretty smoothly, until the very end. I imagine Humphrey was annoyed after a full day of Marius playing games with him and trying to ride him for photo ops, but who is really to say what was going through a hippos mind. All we know, is that at one point, Humphrey lasered in on Marius’s teenage nephew, Johan (Yo-han)
Johan remembers laughing uncomfortably as Humphrey’s can to the edge of the water and started staring at him angrily. He backed away slowly, not knowing what else to do. Maybe if he moved slowly enough humphrey wouldnt be able to see him, like a t rext. It seemed to be working, johan made it to the high grass, he should be able to duck behind it and be hidden.. All of a sudden, humphrey ran at him at full speed, hitting him with enough force to knock him 10 feet back. Johan described it like getting hit by a car.
But it wasn’t over for Humphrey, who chased after the boy he just knocked a few feet away, and clamped down on his pelvis and leg, shattering the bone. Marius ran over when he heard the screams, and Humphrey backed off, retreating back into the water to be left alone.
Ultimately, Johan’s organs were only missed by a small margin and it was a miracle he left the hospital with ONLY permanent leg injuries, and not something worse.
And then there was the time that an older man and his grandson were canoeing down a river near marius’s farm. The hippo had escaped and made it into the river. Since Hippos actually RUN underwater, they don’t swim. Humphrey charged at the duo in their canoes and forced them out of the river. He then continued chasing them on dry land until they were forced up a tree. The grandfather thought that Humphrey would give up trying to get them after a few minutes, but they were stuck in that tree for HOURS. It wasn’t until Marius lured Humphrey away with an apple that the two were able to come down.
Humphrey also started killing other animals on the farm. He got onto a golf course and chased some golfers,
Friends and family started warning Marius that keeping Humphrey around was a bad idea. But he just wouldn’t be swayed. He swore that the sound of his voice calmed the hippo down enough to no longer be aggressive, it was nearly impossible that he’d be attacked.
Then, on november 13th, 2011, just a year after Humphrey attacked his nephew, paramedics were called to Marius’s farm. Someone thought they could see a body floating in the small lake on the property and wanted someone to come check it out.
When emergency services arrived, they found Marius floating in the lake, dead. He had been bitten badly by Humphrey and then dragged into the water, where he was for an indeterminate amount of time. It’s believed that the attack happened the day before.
Marius used to brag that while most people had only ever bonded with cats and dogs, he had bonded with one of the most dangerous animals on the planet. Perhaps he should have taken a page out of Steve Irwin’s book.
In 2006 when Irwin was filming a documentary, he and his crew stumbled upon two male hippos in the wilderness. Steve, who was an avid animal lover, one that wasn’t afraid to hold poisonous animals or get face to face with crocodiles, immediately turned around and ran screaming ‘i dont want anything to do with those guys!!”. And if Steve wouldn’t pet it, maybe we shouldn’t either.
We’re going to take a quick break. And when we get back, I want to tell you the story about a man who was hoarding big cats and other wild animals, and what happened when he decided to let them all out.
On October 18th, 2011, at around 5pm Sam Kopchak walked outside to tend to his horse, a half-Arabian Pinto named Red. He shared a home in Zanesville, Ohio with his 84 year old mother. This was part of his evening routine, go out and feed his horse before sundown, and then come in and have dinner with his mother. But tonight, something was up.
When he got outside, he could tell that Red seemed anxious. He had run over to a far corner of the field and was nervously pacing. Sam tried to lure Red over with some food, but whatever was stressing the horse out was more important than his need to eat. He wouldn’t budge.
That was strange, sam thought. But then he looked over to the fence where his neighbor Terry’s property butted up against his. And there, Terry’s horses were doing the same exact thing. They were all pacing around, trying to get as far over as they could. It looked like they would just run away if the fence weren’t there.
Something was not right, this only happened when there was some kind of threat in the area. And just as Sam has that thought, out of the corner of his eye he sees a dark shadow taking huge, labored steps towards the horses. A black bear.
Sam jumps into action. There were plenty of bears in the area and he was ready for a sighting like this. He just wanted to put Red in the barn fast enough to call his neighbor Terry and tell him to get his horses inside as well. He goes over to get red, trying to not move too quickly and draw attention to himself, when he sees something else. Just as big as the bear, no wait, bigger. And lighter in color. Blondish. Sam squints and can’t believe his eyes. It’s a lion.
He’s moves a lot faster, and hes able to get inside of his barn with red, but he watches as the lion stalks him the whole time with its eyes, waiting for him to stumble or turn his back. Once he’s in there, he uses the telephone he installed in his barn to call his mother. Don’t come outside he says. One of Terry’s cats got out.
By the time Sam and his mom called 911, the police were already headed over to the property of Sam’s neighbor, Terry Thompson.
Sam had known for some time that Terry was collecting exotic animals, he just didn’t have an idea of what that looked like. Sometimes when he was out feeding his horse at night, he’d hear a deep guttural roar. But he hadn’t seen any of the big cats up close, so he figured Terry was doing a good job keeping them secure. He also, didn’t have an idea of how many there were, but there must be multiple. Maybe 4 or 5?
The officer heading over to Terry’s property was Sgt. Steve Blake. He had been told that Sam had seen a lion in the area. But he was also told that a call came into 911 claiming there was a panther or some other sort of big cat seen lurking in the woods near a family's house. Another caller claimed they saw wolves. Word was spreading throughout the tight knit community that it wasn’t safe to be outside, but Sgt. Blake wondered if news had made it to the outdoor boys soccer game that was happening just down the road.
As Blake approached Terry’s house he honked his horn, but no one came outside. He started to worry, what if Terry had been feeding the animals and something happened to him. What if some of them got out?
Blake knew that Terry had a collection of big cats. It was not a very well kept secret in town. But, they were in Ohio, and at the time, Ohio had almost no laws around the ownership and sales of wild animals, so Blake had never seen Terry’s collection, he didn’t know what he was walking into, all he knew is he needed to keep his weapon CLOSE.
He got out of his car at the top of the driveway, where he found John Moore, a caretaker who helped Terry feed his animals. John looked pale as a ghost. He told Blake he needed to show him something, and together they went to the back of Terry’s property.
Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. Dozens of big cages in Terry’s backyard that once held Lions, tigers and other animals, were torn open, as if someone had intentionally cut the animals out. The only animals remaining were two monkeys and a dog still in their cages.
How many animals are you missing? Blake asked. Afraid to hear the answer.
John swallowed loudly. About 56.
The 56 included lions, tigers, bears, wolves, baboons, cougars, and more. All animals that Terry had been stockpiling over the years. Blake looked around, what was this guy thinking? His property was just a few acres, hardly enough room for the animals to roam, and judging by the horrendous condition of the inside of the cages, they probably weren’t let out much.
This no longer felt like an accident, so he needed to know where Terry was, now.
John explained that the last time he heard from terry was the night before, and he shared some concerning things.
Terry, who was 62 at the time, told John that he received a letter from an unknown sender claiming that his wife, Marion, had been unfaithful. Terry had recently been in prison for some time, and the letter hinted at the fact that the infidelity had happened while Terry had been locked up. Marion and John were taking care of the animals together during this time.
John had asked Terry if he believed Marion had been cheating, and he responded cryptically with
'Well, I have a plan to find out, and you will know it when it happens.' "
What that meant, they were unsure of. But where was Terry now? Was this part of some plan? Blake was waiting for back up, nervously looking around to make sure there weren’t any lions watching him from a distance. He could hear sirens about a mile away approaching the property, but if he were to be pounced on by the 56 missing wild animals right now, would it even matter?
Just then, in the back corner of the cages, he sees a white tiger. Blake tightens his grip on his weapon, but It’s not looking at him, it’s occupied with something, eating maybe. Blake squints to try and see, he does NOT want to go over there. As he does, John covers his mouth. Oh my god.
The tiger is eating Terry’s lifeless body. John Muffles a scream but the sounds of the sirens reaching the base of Terry’s driveway drown him out anyways. Before he knows it, dozens of officers are on the scene, guns drawn, asking the same question. Where is terry? All Blake can do is point.
Who Terry Thompson was as a man is complicated, and before we get more into his death, it’s important to understand his life.
Terry was born in 1949 on a farm near where he raised his animals in Zanesville. Hearing about the animal hoarding that occurred later in his life, it might be easy to jump to the conclusion that he had a complicated childhood, but no. According to those who knew him, he had a beautiful, smiley upbringing. He was described as a good looking young man who always had a girlfriend.
But everything changed the day he got drafted.
See, Terry was born in an unlucky period in American history. Born just in time to come of age during one of the most ill advised wars America has ever partaken in. No one knew why we were getting involved in Vietnam’s civil war. To fight communism, Americans were told. But young people wanted peace. And then, one day, those young people started being called one by one to go hunt other young men hiding in the thick jungle of a foreign country.
When Terry came back from Vietnam, the same people who watched him grow up said they no longer recognized him. The once vibrant, charming young man was now quiet. A loner. Some thought it was from agent orange exposure. Others just said that Vietnam never left him.
He apparently confessed to a friend one night that “I guess I’ll never go to heaven because I killed people”. He wrestled with the morality of what he had done. If he hadn’t killed as his country told him to do, he would have been killed, just like many of his friends were. and After watching so many of his friends die in the jungle, he struggled to understand why he had been spared.
But one good thing happened when he was in Vietnam, he said.
While he was there, he lived in a small tent with a wooden floor. Sleeping was torture. But one day, a little monkey came by and really took a liking to Terry. They became buds, and Terry looked forward to the times in his day when the monkey would come by looking for food.
It wasn’t long after he returned home from the war that he started collecting wild animals.
First it was a baby tiger for his new wife, Marion. Then it was another, then monkeys, lions, Panthers, more more more. He hardly had the money to feed all of them, but there was something inside of him that couldn’t be stopped. He just kept collecting and collecting.
Animals were not the only thing that Terry collected, though. He also started stockpiling weapons. He loved to be surrounded by dangerous things, it made him feel safe. He thought they would always be pointed outwards and never towards him.
But word spread around town. That there was a Vietnam Vet who lost his mind in the war and now had hundreds of guns and wild animals. So one day, the feds showed up.
It’s worth it to say though, that they showed up mostly because of the guns. There were more laws around gun ownership at the time than there were about the buying and selling of wild animals. And there were no laws around that.
Because of that, many regular people in Ohio had dangerous animals in their homes. The private owners of these animals typically felt they were helping the animal. They thought, well if I don’t buy them someone else will. They convinced themselves that the animal would never survive in the wild and therefore should live in their home. Or that if the animal was endangered it was a GOOD thing to own one, it didn’t matter where it was.
Chris Heath who wrote an article about Terry Thompson and his at-home zoo for GQ interviewed some people in Zanesville who also owned wild animals at the time. One man slept in bed with a leopard for 19 years. Another woman hadn’t been on vacation in 7 years because she didn’t want to leave her 6 bobcats behind.
These animals were often easy and cheap to get, usually costing far less than a purebred Dog. Maybe that’s why in 2005, around the time that Terry was collecting his pets, it was estimated that there were more Tigers in the United states than there were in the wild.
So When the police were going over to check on Terry’s guns, they knew they wouldn’t be able to bust him for anything regarding the animals, but they wished they could have. The scene was dismal. Sickly, angry animals locked in cages, sitting in their own waste. Roadkill that Terry had scraped off the road to feed the animals was everywhere. And on top of that, there were over 130 firearms and loads of ammo. Whatever was going on at this house, they didn’t like it. And it didn’t seem like Terry was in the proper mental place to own that many dangerous things, both feline and firearm. But at the end of the day, the only charges he walked away with was owning one firearm without a serial number, and owning one machine gun. Terry pleaded guilty and in 2010 went to the Federal Correctional Institution in Morgantown. That’s where he was when his wife cheated on him.
As Sgt Blake is pointing at Terry’s body, all he knows is that the night before, Terry had discovered his wife had an affair. But why let the animals out of their cages? Why not just get a divorce?
Well, there were a few more disturbing details surrounding Terry’s death that illustrated the mental space he was in. We’re going to take a quick break before I get into those, and just a heads up this next part is intense.
Sgt. Blake watched as Terry’s body was being slowly eaten by one of the Tigers, but he knew he needed to go check it for clues.
And mind you, as all of this is happening, other officers were deployed in town with a shoot to kill mandate for any wild animal they came across. One of the officers who described himself as a cat person said it was one of his worst days on the job.
Trucks of local law enforcement were patrolling the town, one person driving, four in the bed of the truck, weapons aimed at the woods.
Most of the animals were still on Terry’s property though, so while some officers went with Blake to look at Terry’s body, and others circled the property shooting any big cat, bear, wolf and monkey they could find, no questions asked.
As Sgt. Blake and the other officers approach Terry, they see that not only is the tiger eating him, but there's raw chicken all around his body. Like it was put there to entice the animals. It’s also apparent that Terry died of a self inflicted gunshot wound.
But if Terry’s plan was to let all of the animals out and take his own life, why cut the cages instead of just opening them?
The best guess we have is that, Terry knew his wife loved the wild animals. The couple never had kids, they just had their animals. To her, the big cats were her babies. Maybe Terry wasn’t trying to unleash the animals on the town to attack civilians, maybe he was just letting them out so his wife wouldn’t be able to keep them. Destroying their cages so they had no place to come back ti,
Another strange and incredibly dark detail of Terry’s death, and I told you, this part is intense, is that when his body was brought into the coroners office, they noted that he had no genitalia. It was inconclusive if it was removed before or after the Tiger started eating him.
According to others that knew terry and were interrogated by the police, Terry had been talking about a plan similar to this for some time, even before he went to prison. He had mentioned to someone he was thinking of killing his wife and then himself. This left officers to wonder how impulsively this decision was really made.
At the end of the day, luckily no one in town, besides Terry, was injured by any of the animals, and the police were able to put down all of the escaped animals, which included 18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, and 2c monkeys. Terry thought he had lost his wife, and so he made the decision to lose everything. It’s still unclear what he thought would happen to the animals when he let them out, but his actions lead to the deaths of 49 of his animals, leaving many to wonder if he loved the animals at all. How can he claim he loved these animals when he kept them in cages their whole life, and then release them to be killed? I mention that some people claim that all these animals need is love, but this treatment is not love.
And since Terry let all of his animals out, Ohio has passed laws regarding wild animal ownership. They passed the Dangerou animal act, which requires owners to have special permits and enough space for the animal to live. It may have come a little late, but hopefully it’s a law that protects both people and the animals.
While researching this episode, I found that the internet in general does not look kindly on people who own dangerous animals. They think those people are dumb, that they’re narcissistic to believe they have a unique connection to an animal that otherwise would rip their heads off.
But I keep going back to the christian the lion video. Even knowing what I know about it now, it still gets me. There’s just something about a lion recognizing its old owners and wanting to embrace them that’s so… hopeful? Like it almost reinforces that yes, our dogs do actually love us! Animals do remember humans and we do share special bonds.
But then I read some of the other stories and I realize that most animals do not care if we live or die. So word to the wise, if you ever come across a hippo, run. And if you ever see a chimp, don’t try to interact with it. I didn’t even get to chimps in this episode but that is a whole other world, people who think chimps are their children. And that REALLY does not work out for anyone.