How This OLD LION made an Amazing Recovery - The Lion Whisperer.

Where's Gin? Like he owns the place. Hello boy. All right, good morning everyone. Today we're going to be taking Vaiety and Ginny out for an enrichment walk. Hello you two. Oh, oh, oh. Move on, move on. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Hey. Are we walking or are we going to be naughty? Are we going to be naughty? Bye, bye. That's more like it. A little bit of love. Love goes a long way. Gorgeous. All right guys, so I hijacked George away from his tour. He's got a tour coming up in about half an hour. So he doesn't have much time. So I hope these two play ball and look at him. This is the smartest you're ever going to see George looking. Look, he doesn't even want to look at the camera. Look how smart he looks. Check George. Wow. George, George really does clean up. Jenny, nothing wrong with your ability. Come boy. Yeah. Yay. That is brilliant. That is super. Yeah, super, super, super. All right, why do I say that is super? Is because the ability of Vaietsi to jump that high, just with a spring from his hindquarters, means that the muscle integrity and the responsiveness of the muscles to the neural inputs has increased. Because, you know, a few months back, there's no way Vaietsi would have been able to do that. All right, so the lions absolutely know what this camp represents. This is the camp that leads to the freedom camp. Energy. Come, let's go. Oh, he's having a jaw there. Let's get going. Okay, this is a perfect time to go walking. The weather is amazing. It's crisp, not a cloud in the sky. This is kind of like spring weather. We're going to be having highs of about 25, 26 degrees today. All right, freedom. Like he owns the place. Let's just enjoy her having a little roll around. Let's just talk quickly about Vaietsi. So, I can't remember how long ago, but Vaietsi had that episode where I was taking him for a walk with Ginny and I opened the gate and it actually looked like he was drunk. It looked like he had been sedated and he was stumbling all over the place. So, obviously, we did some tests and, you know, got Doc Caldwell out and all we could find really was kind of a decreased neurological input to his hindquarters. So, it almost looked like there was some form of a narrowing of the spine or a spondylosis of the spine. And that was quite worrying because we thought that he wasn't going to recover from that. But luckily, slowly but surely and with the right treatment from Dr. Caldwell, slowly but surely Vaietsi started to utilize his hindquarters a lot more. To the degree that you saw him today jump into the vehicle and literally like a young lion would at 17 and a half, guys. So, he's almost 18. Hello, boy. Going about his business. Little protuberances on the spine. The spine processes and that we don't want. We want those to be nice and full. But on an older lion, that's you, I didn't see you. On an older lion, guys, that is one of the first places that they lose. They tend to lose weight. I want to see if she's going to jump this. Maybe just to drink. Drink or a jump. Guys, this river seems a lot fuller and we haven't had much, mind you, we had rain last week. We had quite a downpour. So, I think that that has filled this up. This was looking a bit lower, but wow, it's looking really pretty. All right, guys. So, while we are waiting for Ginny to catch up, I wanted to actually get into what I wanted to talk about today. And I've been meaning to watch this documentary for a long, long time. But something's always got in the way. And then about two days ago, I was on social media, as one does, scrolling away aimlessly. And then I came across this post of this lady who was really, really tucking in to someone I follow, and that is Ocean Ramsey. And talking about the documentary that was on Netflix called The Shark Whisperer, which aired a year ago, but somehow has become topical again. And yeah, long story short, this person was going into all the reasons why ocean is a bad influencer, let's call it that. You know, where the narrative is shark conservation. This person, this commentator was saying that it sends a wrong message. And, you know, she was carrying on about also her credentials and whether the shark scientific community should be taking this person seriously. So I thought, let me go and have a watch because this is very close to my home. Ocean is going out into the wild and swimming with sharks that are wild. And I suppose the nub of the criticism was the fact that she's touching them and interacting with them. And that was the beef that this person had. And I thought, without having seen the documentary, maybe there's some merit to that argument. However, I watched the documentary and understanding the context in which she does what she does. I just think it's a non-starter. I think what people need to understand in this world is things are contextual and we cannot just look at something at face value. And I know we love to throw in the equation that this is going to be a case of monkey see monkey do. I hear it all the time with my interactions. And it is disingenuous. It really is disingenuous to believe or to say that everyone who sees somebody doing something uniquely special with a wild animal or in whatever field they are good at, it means that, you know, we should stop it because there is some idiot out there who may just imitate what you are doing. I think by and large, 99% of people out there, guys, will look at what someone does like myself or Ocean and realize that this is somebody with a unique ability and talent. And that if you put me, who actually understands animal behavior, in the same situation in the ocean as her, there's not a stuff I would be doing what she does. Even though she's shown me a new side of sharks, which I think is so important for sharks and their reputation. And so what I'm trying to say, guys, is the context of how she does what she does is everything. Oh, no, no, no. Oh, I love that about them. So good. We're just taking a break here. If we lose all of these people that we look up to that are showing us the importance of wildlife and, you know, where are we going to be 20 years from now when everything in nature has just been so sanitized that, you know, everything's hands off and don't touch and don't look and don't disturb. It got me thinking of Baba Diom, the Senegalese forest ranger. And he was talking about this back in the 60s. And he said, at the end of the day, we are only going to conserve what we love, love what we know and know what we are taught. And, you know, that is, you know, how do you get people to love this animal? How do you get people to, you know, see Vietze in a different light? And I think the visual hook is an important one. And it certainly works for ocean. And I think the amount of good that she's done, I would put her there. Yeah, I would put her there with the likes of Jane Goodall and Steve Irwin and those types of people, because I think she's influenced a lot of kids and people into seeing sharks differently. Yeah. What do you say, big boy? Where's Gin? Where's Ginny Gin Gin? Come, let's go. Ginny's just seen a warthog. I can see the warthog. Warthog can't see Ginny. I think what we have here is Ginny about to catch a warthog. Never a dull moment, guys. Okay, so although Ginny didn't find anything, or she didn't catch anything, she's determined to get something. I can see her walking zigzags. Adamant. All right. Strip down. What do you think? The Vietze bootleg edition. I think it's pretty cool. Today's walk's been five kilometers. I think that's a pretty good walk. What do you think, Ginny? Such a good girl. Shouldn't be too long before he comes and finds us. I just want to give a special mention to all of the members and pride leaders here on YouTube and the subscribers on Facebook. Massive thank you, guys. Your support does mean the world and helps me to continue with my important work. So yeah, without further ado, onwards and upwards till next time, guys. From me, Kevin. Bye.