South Africa's Kruger National Park is home to wealth of majestic animal species, which just so happens to include the African lion, one of the most admired creatures on the entire planet. Tourists from all over the world come to the park with the hope of laying eyes on the jungle's highest royalty, but some of them get a closer look than they bargained for. We see this in the following footage, which shows a male and a female lion taking a break for a quick sun bath on the middle of the road, resulting in a traffic jam of tourists willing to lean out of their cars to get as close as they can for an intimate moment with one of nature's most dangerous creations. However, it's little surprise that these humans would make the mistake of overstaying their welcome. Watch as the male lion sends all of them ducking back inside their vehicles with one single roar.
We have to admit, this video did give us a good laugh, but this is scary to watch when you consider there were naive children involved. These big cats are incredibly fast probably would've had no trouble snatching one of them right out of the window if they had to. For this reason, South Africa's National Parks has rules about leaning or sticking body parts out vehicle windows, so it's on the adults in this situation to be more cautious. There have been plenty of life-and-death nature scenes play out between predator and prey on this park's roadways, and park rangers obviously don't want a bunch of clueless tourists ending up as just another link in the food chain.
The videos we see from Kruger remind us of the ones we regularly see from Yellowstone here in the states. While it's great that people get to experience wildlife up close and personal, they have a responsibility to educate themselves on the proper ways to interact with dangerous animals like these to stay safe. Let's hope these tourists spent the rest of the trip shooting their pictures behind the safety of the windshield!
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
