Antelope Park

I'll start off with saying our 5 days in Antelope park were pretty freaking cool. The park's ultimate goal is to bring more lions back into the wild. They have a four step lion program. Step one raises lion cubs to hone their instincts, two puts them in a semi-wild environment with no human contact, step three puts them in an barely controlled environment and those lions have wild cubs. Step four is full release into the wild, but only of the wild cubs once they grow up to be adults. Lions with human contact can never be released into the wild. The park has rescued orphaned elephants as well.

Our first full day, I started off by riding one of these elephants. Her name is Chibi. We rode for half an hour in the bush.




My view




Our shadow

She was such a friendly girl. She even gave me a hug and got elephant snot all over my arm. But of all the problems to have in the world, I'd take elephant snot any day.


It was slimy.

That evening I went on the lion walk. This is part of step one to familiarize the cubs with the bush.




Crazy! This is Laili, an 18 month old lion cub.





The two cubs under a tree. They were so cute and playful together.



She looks pretty viscous but she is yawning.




Looking right in the camera.



She tried to pounce on my camera after these pictures, haha!

The next day I got to interact with the elephants. Ntombi was the one I was with this time. You'll notice she only has one tusk. Most of the elephants had just one because of their history before they were taken in.



Feeding her.




Om nom nom!



Who needs a car anyways?




Eye see you!




Kisses :-*

Originally I wondered at how ethically the elephants were treated. But once a day they do the walk and interaction and the rest of the day is theirs to wander through the park and graze and just be elephants. They even wandered through our camp a couple of times.

That evening was the lion feeding. Ever wonder what it's like to have seven full grown male lions gallop straight towards you at full speed? I'll tell you: it's spectacular but I just about peed my pants. What happened was we were on one side of a fence and a dead cow was on the other. They the lions were let loose to eat and, boy, did they go for it.





This happens so the dominant male can be picked out and eventually put through the next stages. They want the best of the best to go into the wild.




Mhhhmmmm





This one turned out to be the dominant one. He was super protective over his food and roared at us to stay away. He didn't like me much.



You have a bit of cow blood on your chin, bud. Nope, the other side. There, now you got it.




And then when they were done eating, they all laid down and slept. They are cats, after all.

- Sent from Africa using my iPad