@surfk wrote:
I'm not sure I understand the point of what type of safari a person is on and the level of danger people can be in, in relation to the possibility of being eaten by a lion.
Whether people enter in order to either hunt or to just admire the animals, its all still a wild environment full of wild life. While safaring can perhaps come across as something very civilized and well-orchestrated, one is still entering a wild and potentially very dangerous environment.
In that sense, its not too unlike taking a journey into Outer Space. If they ever get the Spaceport operating, and recreational trips into Space become accessible and "user-friendly", the passengers will never be able to say that they're 100% safe just because they paid a lot of money and they're going as an adventure vs a mission backed by NASA.
It will always remain fact that they're doing something with a level of danger.
People don't get eaten by wild lions - whether they're in a reserve or not - unless they got too close. It doesn't mean they got too close for bad reasons (such as to hunt and kill) but clearly they got too close and did SOMETHING (whether innocently or unwittingly) which prompted the animal to attack.
A guide, like in the situation of this thread, called the lion for a reason. As a guide, it was his job to make the experience as "full" for the tourists as possible. He wasn't calling the lion to dinner (well, not on purpose). He wasn't calling it to come in from the rain.
He was most likely calling it as to get the lion to look or approach so his tourists could get a better view or camera shot (or "safari experience").
But these animals aren't trained performing lions. The surroundings, no matter how comfortable the guides might become with them, are still wild and dangerous.
In fact, like any workplace accident, its sometimes due to a worker forgetting himself or being too comfortable in the job. A good worker in a highly dangerous job never forgets safety first no matter how long he's been on the job or how accustomed they become to the environment or job they enter each day.
So it doesn't much matter if the lion was within a reserve's boundaries or not. A reserve is essentially just a protected WILD environment. Its not a euphemism for a tamed environment.
And sometimes tourist safaris or their guides seem to think it makes some difference when it comes to their level of safety. But as we know, it doesn't.
In a sense its like the Grand Canyon. No matter how common a family vacation destination it is or how approachable it might seem from the southern rim...its a vast, wild, potentially deadly dangerous environment. Any ranger will tell people that a million times. And yet, you still see naive or defiant (or stupid) tourists attempting to hike it in 100-d heat wearing nothing but flip flops and carrying no fluids other the ice cream bar they bought back at the Grand Canyon Village gift shop.
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