- 5 hours ago
A peaceful morning walk with lions Vayetse and Ginny takes a sobering turn as Kevin Richardson speaks out about the snare poaching decimating wildlife in the Greater Kruger area. The Lion Whisperer shares why reports of mutilated lions leave him angry, and explains the difficult contrast between the protected lives of sanctuary lions and the dangers facing animals in the wild.
This wildlife conservation commentary raises awareness about lion poaching, cable snares, and the people who discover their devastating impact. For viewers interested in African wildlife, lion behavior, the Greater Kruger ecosystem, and real-world conservation challenges, this enrichment walk offers both intimate moments with two lions and a heartfelt call to pay attention to threats facing wild lions.
This wildlife conservation commentary raises awareness about lion poaching, cable snares, and the people who discover their devastating impact. For viewers interested in African wildlife, lion behavior, the Greater Kruger ecosystem, and real-world conservation challenges, this enrichment walk offers both intimate moments with two lions and a heartfelt call to pay attention to threats facing wild lions.
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AnimalsTranscript
00:03Hello, my boy. Hello, my boy.
00:09I'm angry. I'm actually shaking.
00:20Hello, guys. Oh, where are we going?
00:38What a stunning morning to go for a walk with these two beautiful souls.
00:44Really, the weather is absolutely perfect.
00:47Well, good morning, guys. Good morning, good morning, good morning.
00:51We are out and about on an enrichment walk with Vajetzi and Ginny,
00:55who many of you will know, coming up 16 years of age.
01:01In fact, I think they are 16 years of age.
01:06So getting on in terms of lion ages.
01:11And yeah, both are doing well.
01:15Ginny's full of beans, as always, running ahead.
01:19And Vajetzi is on a Vajetzi mission.
01:22But today, guys, today's video is going to be a little different.
01:27I was going to talk on a different topic.
01:32But then driving in here today, I got a message.
01:38A message from a guy who my foundation is associated with.
01:47It's a guy named Derek, Derek van der Merwe.
01:50Those of you who follow me will probably recognize the name.
01:54And he's head of the carnivore conservation program at the EWT,
01:59the Endangered Wildlife Trust.
02:01So, guys, this is very important, this topic.
02:05And I was thinking, yeah, here I am going on a walk with Vajetzi and Ginny.
02:10And they live a pretty sheltered, protected, safe life.
02:16And there's always this conflict in my mind about, you know, the fact that they live a life that's safe.
02:26Versus the fact that they should actually be roaming the wilderness.
02:33Yep, they should be roaming the wilderness.
02:36Vajetzi should be in a perfect world with a pride of lionesses who would typically have cubs.
02:45Maybe Vajetzi would have a coalition brother or friend that he, you know, had tenure over the pride with.
02:56There she goes.
02:59Nice.
03:00I need to come back and get a print of that.
03:05But, yeah, so there's that conflict, guys, about the fact that these lions should be roaming free and wild.
03:12Versus the fact that they actually live a sheltered, comfortable life here in captivity.
03:18And, you know, obviously my take on it is I'd prefer to see them out about in the wild.
03:25But, and this is what brings me to the point of discussion today, is I received this call just, or
03:33this message rather,
03:35telling us about some more lions that had been slaughtered up in the greater Kruger National Park area.
03:43And then some really gruesome pictures followed.
03:48Just makes me super, super angry and incensed.
03:51And I thought, let me take this opportunity.
03:53I know how passionate you guys are about Vajetzi and Ginny.
03:59Yeah, I really consider them lucky ones.
04:03But we need to do more, I felt.
04:06So, I pivoted and I'm going to, you know, kind of go off piste here and, you know, just raise
04:17a few topics
04:19and talk about this whole issue that's facing lions and other animals in the greater Kruger National Park,
04:25which is basically our, you know, flagship natural wilderness area here in South Africa.
04:32It's considered to be, you know, almost, in inverted commas, completely natural system.
04:41But currently, yeah, there is a upsurge in poaching.
04:47Yeah, boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Vajetzi. Oh.
04:50There's an upsurge in poaching, guys, and it's really decimating animals over in the northern parts of the park.
05:03And it's a horrible thing. It's a horrible death. We'll get into it.
05:09It's this whole snare poaching that's going on. It's running rampant. It's a scourge.
05:13It's a scourge. I'm angry. I'm actually shaking.
05:22Oh.
05:46It's very wet, yeah.
05:49Yeah.
05:51Yeah.
05:53Yeah.
05:54What are we going to do?
05:56Should we go this way? Here. Ginny. Here.
05:59Yeah.
05:59Yeah. Ginny.
06:00Yeah.
06:01Let's go this way. Come.
06:02Oh.
06:04Let's go back up here. Hey.
06:07Hello, my boy.
06:08Hello, my boy.
06:12Yeah.
06:13You guys are ...
06:18Right here.
06:19There you go.
06:20Hello, my boy.
06:20Wait, I'm really kind of a of, of a节目.
06:32I can't do it.
06:32Oh, my boy.
06:32I can't do it now.
06:32You know, I wasn't real stressed.
06:32It's a big one out there.
06:36you know?
06:49Vaetsi has been super affectionate this morning. I think it's because I'm wearing a Vaetsi top.
06:56He thinks I'm his brother. Chucks aside, very appropriate that I'm wearing
07:02my Vaetsi top and I can promise you guys it was, it's a coincidence I didn't actually plan it that
07:12way.
07:12It just so happened. Yeah I think subconsciously I did know. There she goes. Where are you going you nutter?
07:23No. I think subconsciously I knew that I was walking Vaetsi and Ginny and yeah I decided
07:36that that was the appropriate t-shirt to wear. So many of you have actually been asking about
07:47why isn't there a Ginny portrait. So actually today I've got my camera with and I am going to try
07:53and
07:53get a decent portrait picture of Ginny that we can offer up as a print on a t-shirt. I
08:01know there's
08:01a lot of you out there who are going to go yay finally he listened. Anyway a lot of my
08:07mind,
08:07my mind is spinning today as I said earlier. It's hard to be, it's hard to be happy when you
08:18consistently
08:19getting these images coming through of mutilated lions. Lions that have had their heads chopped off,
08:28paws chopped off and you know eviscerated, stomach fat taken. It's really hard to be happy but
08:39I've been out and about with these guys for 10-15 minutes and just seeing how much fun they're
08:47having is it's really it's really difficult not to have your mood lifted. So yeah it's a little bit of
08:58a bittersweet kind of walk this morning. I want to get the message across as succinctly as possible but
09:05it's just not a message that can be delivered in a one-liner. It needs a bit of background and
09:12we need
09:13to you know we need to paint the picture. Hello my boy look at him beautiful oh you're looking so
09:23good
09:23my boy look at my boy look at you yeah sure I'm getting sidetracked and distracted this is Vietti had
09:30a bit
09:30of a bout of what we call ringworm and the guys have done such an amazing job at treating it
09:42and
09:43yeah now the hair is growing back. Oh he's a happy cat. The hair is growing back and he wants
09:49a tummy rub
09:50but I must just say Vietti was an absolute star. He really was guys he he loaded into the the
10:03vehicle
10:03and allowed the guys without me being there he allowed the guys to one feed him at the one end
10:14and the other one take his tail through the gap in the loading vehicle and wash his entire tail with
10:23um uh this you know special antibacterial anti-fungal soap and then put this f10 cream on and they did
10:34that for a solid three weeks every day and yeah that is the result his tail is healed healing the
10:43hair is
10:44growing back once the hair starts growing back you know that that's the end of it and um so we
10:49can you
10:50treat like once a week now and he will be fine but he's already he's a happy happy happy cat
10:55today look at this guy
11:02come so I want Mr Big come Mr Big let's go come oh let's go come boy yeah no more
11:12roly-poly
11:39he says I'm not going anywhere
11:41he says I'm not going anywhere
11:45come big boy
11:51oh let's go we can't laze about all day long we've got some work to do
12:00some demonstrations to do
12:15come come come come yeah okay let's see if I can get across here
12:23such a stunning scenery beautiful setting
12:35come
12:36come boy
12:36come boy yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah second thoughts oh yeah
12:45come dude let's go come come come come
12:55come here
13:01wow it was hardly a jump my boy but anyway we'll take it
13:06all right guys, so it seems every time I'm trying to talk about um this thorny issue of what you
13:16know what we can and can't portray on on YouTube I know that if we showed
13:23graphic images the problem is is I really want to because I think that's
13:30how you create this this anger within people where they actually go this is
13:38bull and I actually want to do something about it but there's two
13:43problems with that thinking the first problem is is YouTube will flag it and
13:50say this is a sensitive content and what that in turn does is it throttles its
13:57reach and it throttles its ability to show ads and obviously one of the ways in
14:07which we generate revenue is by you know creating a platform that's that's a
14:15nice place for advertisers to advertise and so as soon as the advert as soon as
14:20YouTube sees any graphic content then they kind of flag it and then no one
14:29advertises on their content so that's the first problem the second problem and I've
14:35seen this so many times with documentaries is if you make a documentary as it
14:42really is so you show people the real world they switch off it seems no one
14:50which is understandable I'll say that but no one wants to have their already
14:56bombarded lives with negativity have bombarded with even more negativity on a
15:03YouTube channel that they're used to watching to get some you know form of
15:09relief so they come to my YouTube channel to you know learn something about
15:16lions to have some light-hearted kind of entertainment where the lions do some
15:22fun and funny stuff but we've got to be very delicate and very smart about the way
15:29that we tell people about the real issues that are going on in lion conservation
15:34which are actually at the end of the day why why we're doing what we're doing we
15:39really want people to understand the severity of what's going on out there
15:45let's go back to the start I want to show you graphic images guys I want to
15:48show you what it looks like when a lion has entered into a snare a cable snare it's got
15:56a quarter around its neck and then thrashed around for hours if not days who
16:03knows how long that lion suffered in that snare before it succumbed and then
16:10these poachers are lying in wait they come out and they you know open up the
16:16lion they take its stomach fat for the muti trade they chop off its paws for its for its
16:23for the for the nails the claws and then they decapitate that lion take its head
16:31for the teeth and all you left with when those poor souls on the ground that the
16:39team on the ground the guys that really you know put their the work in they come
16:45across these carcasses and they've got to then report back and deal with it I mean
16:50you can just imagine how traumatized these guys are where it gets to a point
16:55where they become so desensitized to seeing these guys being snared that it
17:03really doesn't even hit home anymore I don't want to become complacent about the
17:08images that we're seeing I think every time we see an image of an animal snared we
17:13need to be more motivated to do something about it
17:20it's a journey and by it see a little way
17:30our back yeah I'm sorry if I went on a bit but it was an important message it is
17:39an important message and yeah I feel passionate about spreading the message
17:44and getting the word out there and you guys are obviously the ones that have the
17:52ability to help me with that many people ask me what they can do to support I think
18:00one of the the best things anyone can do is just like and share the videos so you
18:06know if somebody wants to know what's going on with lions in South Africa say
18:10hey have you have you listened to this video because this is really what's going
18:14on and that's how we spread awareness which is important because you never know
18:24whose whose computer or TV this video is going to appear on and you know they
18:31may have incredible ability to do something about it so that is one of the
18:39things I will say the power of social media can definitely help these animals
18:47and you know just just to end off I was actually thinking to myself wow how how
18:55incredibly lucky are Vietsy and Ginny you know they live such a protected life they
19:06don't have to worry about a thing they get food they get the best health care via a
19:13brilliant vet Dr. Caldwell they get exercise enrichment entertainment you know a
19:21decent-sized area regular walks wow how lucky can they be and then another part of me the
19:28conflict is the feeling that you know these are wild animals and actually they
19:34shouldn't be in captivity and the fact that I have to do all of this is is sad
19:41because you know Vietsy and Ginny should be out there in the wild and Ginny should have
19:51had cubs Vietsy you should have patrolled territories had tenure over a pride you
20:00know the normal scenario for her for a lion but yeah then another part of me says
20:07but I would hate to see these two land up in a snare and suffer a miserable horrible
20:16death so yeah until such time as we can really better protect lions out there in
20:24the wilderness there's a bigger part of me that says these two are better off here
20:31yeah look the jokes aside they've they've lived their life in a captive
20:36environment they've had a good life but for me as you will know the future is in
20:43protecting areas and getting involved and trying to make sure that there are lions
20:49in the wild for future generations not just in cages in sanctuaries or zoos
20:55because I think those days are are finite and are ending so yeah thanks for
21:01watching guys I appreciate it yeah as I say like and share subscribe if you want to
21:07take a further look at becoming a member and until next time from myself
21:13Ginny fast asleep because she's had a really really good workout and mr. big is
21:18also about to shut his eyes and have a nice siesta from all of us here guys come on
21:36so yeah
21:36yeah
21:36yeah
21:36yeah