Johannesburg - The park in Honeydew where an American tourist was mauled to death by a lion carried on its business as usual last week, although the parking lot looked rather empty as we pulled up for a visit.
They preferred not to be named, but staff on the premises told us on Thursday that they’d noticed a decline in the number of visitors coming through in the past few days, but remained confident that the numbers would pick up.
At the gate to the first enclosure, we rolled down our window one last time to receive a slip of paper from the gentleman at the entrance.
“Please be aware that wild animals by nature are dangerous!” it said in red capital letters. “Keep your windows closed & doors locked at all times whilst driving through our camps!!!”
Funny thing about these deadly predators is that they don’t really seem all that dangerous, especially since we started out our visit at the cubs’ enclosure, where tourists and several busloads of primary school pupils waited to pet, cuddle and roughhouse with the young cats.
Within the adults’ enclosure, meanwhile, handlers and park personnel stand around in the open or sit on the steps of small wooden buildings.
To be honest, if it were not for last week’s grisly attack, I’m sure I would have felt perfectly comfortable viewing apex predators through a bare half-centimetre of glass.
It’s fascinating, an academic anxiety rather than the gut-twisting, fight-or-flight that, say, a charging Rottweiler would provoke.
But being there this week, with the memory fresh with what these animals can do, was mental whiplash – as confusing as our car parked beside the yawning jaws of the king of the jungle.
Anthony Settipani, The Star