Managing LIONS- A Day in the Life - The Lion Whisperer

Where's Bobby boy? There he comes, there he comes. Right guys, so today I'm going to be catching you guys up on Bobcat's help, but before I do so I just have some camp management to take care of, and what I mean by that is we need to free up this camp, do some maintenance work on it, and move the two lions that are in here, Vaieti and Jenny, out to another camp. Yes, okay, I need to just undo this, let you hurry up my boy. All right, she knows what to do, so does he. I must say, I'm super thrilled with Vaieti's progress in terms of his health. I want you to watch now how he's going to jump in, let's see. Okay, after marking his tree, let's go. Come boy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no. Boom, spring, good job big boy. As you can see, that really was a piece of cake. There was no effort involved whatsoever. Both the lions were very compliant, and so was Daka. Daka was also compliant. All right, so the lions both safely in the back, that makes my life a lot easier. Now I can literally just let them out, we can drive to the next camp, and then offload them there. And what it does guys, is it really makes managing this facility that much easier, having these relationships with these animals, that would otherwise be very wary and hateful of people potentially. It would make things extremely dangerous to try and move lions around to different camps for management purposes. So this is a stress-free way of doing it. It's, you know, likened or akin to you taking your dog, you know, somewhere in the car, but it's a dog that actually enjoys going in the car. Whereas if you, whereas guys, if you have animals that are not acclimatized to doing this kind of thing, then that too can become a stress. So what's important to note, is that lions like Vaieti and Ginny and Bobcat and Gabby and all the rest of the lions here at the sanctuary, they've all grown up with this vehicle and other vehicles like it. And for them, this is an absolute outing, being able to be moved from this camp to another camp for management purposes, which also completely enriches their lives. So as much as this is important for management of this facility, because now I don't have lions in here, I can now go in there and do all the necessary tree cutting, grass cutting, whatever needs doing on the fences, etc. without having lions in there and without having to call a vet out at great expense and sedate these animals just to move them to another camp. It just makes no sense. It's nonsensical. Stress them out, put them under anesthetic, purely so you can move them from one camp to the other. This just really makes a whole lot of sense when you're managing the lives of these animals in a captive situation. And look at how stressed they are. Are you stressed, my boy? Look at the stress. All right. So folks, the reason for that explanation is because there has been a few people out there asking, why do I move them? And how do I move them, you know? So there's a good explanation as to why and how. And there's many other factors involved, but that's the main rationale or reasoning. I always say to people, can you imagine living in one space your entire life? As an animal that's living in a captive environment and as an animal whose life I manage, I have a duty and an obligation to give that animal the best quality of life that I can possibly give. Hey. All right. Done and dusted. And done and dusted. And time to now go and fetch Bobcat and Gabby. And also I'll be talking a little bit about the bootleg series. This one is Gabby. I'm going to need this loading ramp for Bobcat. Okay. Hello, Gabs. Gabalicious. Gabzalicious. Oh, whoa, whoa. Where is, where's Bobby boy? There he comes. There he comes. Okay. I'm sure you will have noticed how agile. Hello, my boy. Watch how agile Gabby is. Gabz. I mean, she springs over that like a joke. Okay. Come. Hello, boy. All right. Yeah. In here. Gabz, Gabz, Gabz. Okay. Move. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Bobcat, Bobcat. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well done. Wow. That is amazing. That is really incredible. Yeah. Gabz. Gabby. Yeah. That is crazy incredible. Wow. All right. So he's definitely feeling better because a double jump like that. Wow. Wouldn't have been possible for him a couple of weeks back. Oh, Keto, Keto, Keto. Very, very vocal. Guys, just a quick update on this indestructible animal. So you'll notice the bump on the neck is still there. I was with him and it's yesterday and it's actually become very, very hard. But guys, the truth about Keto is that he's actually picked up weight and he has got energy like I've never seen him have before. He's like a spring chicken. So it's just wow. I mean, he's living with cancer as if it's nothing. I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the future it might take its toll. But for the time being, Keto doesn't know he's got cancer, so he doesn't care. He's just being Keto. And yeah, I must be honest, I haven't seen him as perky and as healthy looking in a very long time. So there's a quick health update on that guy. Okay, we're going to quickly get them past the hyenas. But actually today, today he doesn't really care. He's a funny old cat, old bobcat. Let's go. Oh, whoa. Hello, Gabs. Gabby, here. Here. Gabs. Gabby. Here. Let's talk about bobcat. Let's talk about his health. Him and Gabs are coming on 19. So no longer are they spring chickens. We started to notice some physiological changes in bobcat probably about two, three years ago. Up until that point, bobcat was quite strong. I want you to notice specifically the bow-leggedness of bobcat. So when he walks, look how the legs bow. All right. So that has become a way of compensating. We took bobcat to PETA for an X-ray of the spine and the hips. I noticed severe crepitus in the hips. Crepitus is the grinding, kind of bone on bone. So unfortunately that was quite severe. And then the X-rays revealed that bobcat had spondylosis of the vertebra, which is basically arthritis of the vertebra. And then in some areas, he also had ankylosing spondylosis, which is when the bones fuse. And we did put him on a whack of different courses to kind of stabilize everything. And so what we saw was that this guy was suffering a lot more in the early days of having this arthritic issue. But as the ankylosing of the bone, so as the bone fuses, then we see that it tends to, although it tends to change them mechanically, they tend to compensate and work around it and cope a lot better than in initial phases. So that's what we found. He's not on any anti-inflammatories or any pain meds at the moment. And I've noticed that he's not feeling pain per se, mechanically he walks funny. So everyone looks at it and goes, okay, well that looks sore. But this cat is very good at telling me when he is not happy. He is extremely good at that guys. And currently I would say, and based on how easily he jumped into the vehicle today and even out, I put the loading ramp there for him to walk down and he didn't choose to use it. He chose to just jump over it. So those are two good indicators that he's feeling not bad. Guys, the other thing is the more he walks, the more he uses his muscles, the more the joints get that all important fluid, the synovial fluid in them. They start to lubricate. Everything starts to loosen up. He starts to feel better. Go, jump, jump, jump, jump. Go, go, go, go. Yeah. Very cautious. Very clever Gabs. Like a wound spring old Gabs. She's just got so much ability and flexibility and strength. She's really, man, you would not say she's that age. Crazy. Look how she walks. I mean, let's just give Gabs a moment in the spotlight. Look at that bum. Full of muscle. This is all still good. Her spine is nice. She's not fat. She's got just the right amount of muscle here down the spine. There's not an ounce of fat on her stomach. She's looking amazing. Gabs, you look amazing. Gorgeous Gabby. Gorgeous Gabby, queen of the wild. This is the bootleg series shirt, guys. Gabby's own edition. Very fitting that I'm here with Gabs with her shirt, the Gabby shirt. Gabby. Bobcat, he's doing well. And I think people need to not mistake, you know, they mustn't mistake the bobcat of yesteryear or the young bobcat for the bobcat that we now see now. The bobcat that we see now, guys, is just an aged version. He's still got that same character. He's still got that same motivation, that same mean boy, bad boy kind of ability. And yeah, he just gets on with it. Look at that. Looks a bit strange to us, but he's not limping. He's just, you know, he's kind of swaying his hips to compensate mechanically, because mechanically he's stiff. But honestly, guys, we are so, we are so tuned in, is the right word, to these cats. And we've known them for their entire lives. And so we know when they are not happy cats. And then we adjust accordingly. And I'll be the first person to put my hand up and say, OK, bobcat suffering, guys, maybe we should be thinking about, you know, alleviating this suffering. But he's not suffering. So until such time as we see him suffering, you know, we'll continue to do what we can to give him the best quality of life. And yeah, I'm sure you guys will continue to support this guy because he's just, if ever there was the, yeah, we refer to it as the iconic kind of lion. What would people dream up as, you know, the lion that they would think is how lions should be? And I can tell you, 9 out of 10 would say it's bobcat. The iconic, the epitome is the word I was looking for. The epitome of what a lion should be like, should look like, should act like. Him and Gabs.