Mysterious barrier blocks access to delicious human child

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Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo has a lion enclosure of this sort — and yes, there are sometimes some very interesting interactions between the big cats and small apes. I’m not sure it’s “hunt” as much as “play” — or sometimes “go away, kid, ya bother me” — but from prey’s point of view there may not be a lot of difference.
noot

Looks like me trying to get into a Chipotle Restaurant off-hours.
http://twitter.com/chrismcfeely Chris McFeely

That baby is all like “yeah, whatever.”
ROSSINDETROIT

Equal parts terrifying and hilarious. The kid’s (non) reaction to the huge predator inches away really sells it.
- Martijn Vos
  
  Good kid. At some point he’s almost staring down the lion that tries to eat him.
dragonfrog

I took my daughter to the Calgary zoo a while ago; she was maybe a year and a half. The cougars creeped me right out with how obviously they were sizing her up from a gastronomic angle.
- IamInnocent
  
  I had a similar experience with a 4 y/o boy and mountain lions in Quebec City. As much as I hate to see them captive, I can’t deny that I felt utterly furious at the animals.
  - dragonfrog
    
    Mountain lion, cougar, puma, panther – same scary beast.
    - IamInnocent
      
      Yet, not quite as much as humans sometimes.
- Sparrow
  
  Every time I go to a bar, the cougars sizing people up tend to creep me out.
http://twitter.com/iinamorataa Kat S.

That lion wants to put the baby’s head in it’s mouth so badly.
- davegroff
  
  The heads are a delicacy.
  - Sparg
    
    Yup. My cat would bring me all sorts of critters, but she always crunched the heads for herself.
- EH
  
  I hate to be that guy, but I just watched “Apocalypto” for the first time last week and consequently, with the help of Wikipedia, I learned that it’s the Jaguar that is known for biting into the skulls of its prey. Fun facts!
http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar

Well, considering that this is a (presumably) well-fed zoo animal, and the the observation that all felids have a very strong adoption instinct, I wonder if the lioness is not so much interested in eating the human child as trying to pick it up by the scruff of its neck and transport it to safety.

I may be overly influenced by my cat Pucky’s reaction on her first encounter with a field mouse, which involved the space behind the refrigerator and the proximity to Puck’s nipples.
- http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli
  
  I’d just as soon not give the ferocious lion the benefit of the doubt…
  - hymenopterid
    
    Just remember what happened to the goat in, “Life of Pi”.
- alisong76
  
  My two well-fed moggies are perfectly happy to kill mice and lizards, too. Yes, it’s play, but we all know that play behaviour=predatory behaviour.
  
  Great video. Love the giant mouth!
- EH
  
  I had the opposite interpretation: the black and white stripes on the baby made it look like a delicious baby zebra.
- Gatto
  
  Never trust a lioness :) They’re actually the ones who hunt. The males generally stay home with the cubs because their mane makes hunting impractical.
  
  ( The whole “king of the jungle thing” is either because a) kings don’t do a whole lot either, or b) because observations by human naturalists are skewed by their own perception of gender. )
- billstewart
  
  Sorry, but I’ve got cats too, and I recognize that behaviour. Kitteh may be cute, but that baby looks just like a giant kitteh treat. Not used to seeing it in lions, though.
  
  Sigfried and Roy’s Garden in Las Vegas (out behind the Mirage Casino, assuming it’s still there) has a bunch of cats who aren’t busy with the show right now. The lions and tigers are usually asleep most of the day, and if there are small children around they’re like, yeah, whatever. The leopard has a cage about 20′ long, and one time we were there and there was a kid who’d gotten separated from his herd\\family, and the leopard was just pacing back and forth looking at him, thinking “I’m gonna eat him! He’s lunch! When he gets just a bit farther from the herd, I’m gonna jump over the fence and eat him! Mine!” and this was no kitty playing, this was pure focused predator intent on jumping him. After a while the kid got back together with his herd, and the leopard backed off a bit, and a little later on another small herd of smaller kids walked by, and he was back to the “I can eat all three of those! It’s only going to take one jump! Roar, nom nom, they’re mine!”
Mister44

I have a picture of my 4 yr old that looks like she is PETTING a tiger. The light and angle were just right you can’t see the glass and they appear face to face.
- relawson
  
  When I first saw this clip my immediate thought was how great of an opportunity for close up kid-level still shots at the right angle.
Doctor Device

that’s what happens when you dress your child like a zebra…
- Roose_Bolton
  
  gahhhh, beat me to it.
  
  yup, it’s just a little, motionless zebra. can’t even walk, bite size…delicious!
keihin

The Wildebeest community is going to be very interested in this new force field technology.
Paul Bowen

Look at those shoulders! I hate zoos but they keep this gal fit if not happy.
- lava
  
  She is ripped, is’nt she?
Gary61

‘Hungry kitty is soooo hungry!’
mappo

I’ve had similar experiences involving a bag of potato chips.
- billstewart
  
  Were they about you being unable to get the potato chips open? Or about your cat going for the bag of them? Mine wouldn’t be bothered by the force field, he’d just keep shredding until he got it open, and found they weren’t cat treats.
SomeGuyNamedMark

This is so mean. Let the lion chew on a small child occasionally.
http://twitter.com/kpkpkp Kevin Pierce

Anyone else think of James Thurber’s The Glass in the Field?
“A short time ago some builders, working on a studio in Connecticut, left a large square of plate glass standing upright in a field one day. A goldfinch flying swiftly across the field struck the glass and was knocked cold. When he came to, he hastened to his club, where an attendant bandaged his head and gave him a stiff drink.”
- DevinC
  
  I had not, but thank you for reminding me of James Thurber. And thanks in advance to anyone else who reminds me of James Thurber, too.
Drabula

I hate shit like this. I hate zoos and I hate humans who think destroying the natural world and then laughing at a wild animal trying desperately to be a wild animal is funny. C’mon plague!
- http://twitter.com/TerryBorder Terry Border
  
  *Crosses to the other side of the street.
- http://twitter.com/sirkowski Sirkowski
  
  Sometimes anthropomorphism looks like a mental illness.
  - hymenopterid
    
    Misanthropomorphy: when the only people you don’t hate are animals.
- Mister44
  
  ”Lighten up, Francis.”
- Alexander Sirkman
  
  Yes, I too decry any video which includes an aspect of modern society I disagree with! Especially any video in which a baby is NOT eaten; I mean, really, what else do they even do?
http://twitter.com/AntiBoredomTeam Dan Century

The day will come when the glass will fail, and then everything will change.
ikelleigh

Kind of getting tired of the vertical video craze.
- cbirdsong
  
  Not sure it’s a craze as much as result of cell phones allowing video to be shot that way and people not thinking about it in the moment.
  - ikelleigh
    
    No, I’m pretty sure they are doing it on purpose to toy with my OCD.
    - relawson
      
      Just because you think they’re doing it on purpose to annoy you doesn’t mean they’re not…
      
      Now i’ll give you something else to think about… the letters OCD are in the wrong order…
Teller

25 years later, man on couch describes recurring dream.
- bardfinn
  
  CAN’T LIKE ENOUGH
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000088373269 Adrienne Kelso

That kid’s head looks less like a zebra and more like a soccer ball to me. Any chance the lion was trying to pick up what it thought was a ball? Or am I just adorably naive about the antics of caged cats?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Kelly/692448753 Jim Kelly

Why can’t I haz baby?
http://twitter.com/sirkowski Sirkowski

“This is almost not cool” lol
voiceinthedistance

Nonplussed child is not very plussed.
- L_Mariachi
  
  All children that age are nonplussed.
solid_ekans

This makes my primitive primate brain go , “AAAAAAAAAUUUUUGHHHH!” And then run away.
lava

Right at the very end lil Jack sees the Lion open his mouth all bitey like, and he’s like WTF?
Rich Keller

This could be a way to test hypotheses about aposematic, AKA warning, coloration. Dress your baby up like an arrow frog and put them in front of the jaguar cage at the zoo…
http://www.facebook.com/eric.c.harding Eric ‘Cashew’ Harding

The parents giggling and wowing make this sound like a skit on “Portlandia”
Nadreck

Lexan: the child’s best friend! There’s an underwater viewing gallery (to view things under water, the gallery itself is quite dry) at the Toronto zoo where you can look at polar bears swimming about. Every so often a paw the size of a dinner plate zips out to test the integrity of the window near your head.
spacemunky

How did I know the YouTube comments would all be concern-trolls yelling “child endangerment”….
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=847810626 Jesse Nikolic
  
  I’m reasonably surprised the boingboing comments aren’t full of concern-trolls as well.
Terri Sweeney

Where’s Walt Disney when you need him?

Shouldn’t the lion be singing?
- http://www.facebook.com/TownHallCoffee Tim Noble
  
  The Circle of Life done broke.
TrollyMcTrollington

No lunch for you
lava

I get it now. This is sort of like Schrödinger’s Baby.