00:03The two beautiful boys. Yeah, naughty boy.
00:12Hello boys. Right, good morning everyone. Today we're going to be taking George and
00:20Yame out for an enrichment walk and yeah recently it was World Lion Day and my
00:28foundation and I did a collaboration just celebrating the day and I think that
00:33that is important however I think we also need to be thinking about lions and
00:37their habitats or lack thereof you know more frequently than just on one
00:44particular day. There is George who has just arrived. George and Yame are very
00:51excited yes. Right, we'll be taking the boys to a new camp after the walk. They
01:00tired of being next to Thor's group. Okay. Yame, give me some space buddy. Yeah.
01:19Nice, George. These two are such a pleasure to load. We really have to enjoy them while
01:29they're still young. Oh, George. Hello beautiful. Okay, let's go. Yum, yum. Let's go big boy. Yum, what are you
01:50doing?
01:57Monday. Come, come. Full of it today. I don't know what he's doing. Well, I know what he's doing.
02:12Come. Georgie. Oh, whoa, whoa. Let's go.
02:28It's drying up here. This was all under water. But we are, oh, it's still sloshy here. We are at
02:39the end of our winter.
02:41This is normally completely dry. Hey, come. Yummy. Maybe this is going to be a short walk.
02:51Literally going to offload and load them up again. They continue being naughty cats.
03:02Yeah, it's a good boy. I knew someone's listening. Georgie?
03:10Oh boy. I think these boys are out of practice. Hey? I think you're out of practice. Hey? Come. Let's
03:24go.
03:25Okay. Okay. Just need to get into the rhythm of walking.
03:32Kip, kip, kip, kip.
03:40Hello boy.
03:48Kip, kip, kip, kip, kip, kip.
03:51He's been very naughty today. What Yama's problem is. Hey?
04:01Yama!
04:02Georgie, just let me know if he's coming. We're just going to continue.
04:07Okay, copy that.
04:15All right, let's go.
04:22That's my boy.
04:34All right, so sometimes you just got to play reverse psychology with Yama.
04:40And you can oar him.
04:43And he gets a bit nervous that we've both pushed off and he's left there all on his lonesome.
04:50And that seems to have worked.
04:53Okay, we can get on with our walk.
04:56All right. It's hard navigating through here.
05:00Hey?
05:02All this sloshy oo.
05:04Sinking here.
05:07Let's go this way boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:11There we go.
05:15Here it comes.
05:17Yummy.
05:22Probably going to be coming through here at a rate of knots. Let's see.
05:26Kip, kip, kip.
05:32Here it comes. Oh.
05:38That's what it's all about, eh, boy?
05:41Eh?
05:42Yes.
05:44Good boy.
05:47Naughty.
05:48Naughty yamae.
06:01Now he's decided to take a number two.
06:10It's always, guys, always the days that I say to George,
06:13George, today's going to be a quick walk because I need to be somewhere.
06:17It's like, uh, uh, these lines have other things in mind.
06:25Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
06:32It's a short walk today, my boy.
06:35Short walk.
06:48Nice. Scrape up on those trees.
06:56Up or down?
06:59Up.
07:01Gonna go up.
07:03Let's go up.
07:07Beautiful, fresh morning.
07:09As I said earlier, you can feel,
07:12there's a, even though it's fresh, there's a little bit of a warmer feel in the air.
07:18And you can feel this is the warm front before the cold front.
07:22Um, I believe the temperatures are going to get pretty frosty in the next few days.
07:29And, uh, we may even get some snow here.
07:31That should be quite interesting.
07:34We are certainly not geared up for snow.
07:37That's for sure.
07:42And they're two beautiful boys.
07:45Yeah, naughty boy.
07:47Woo.
07:53Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
07:56All right.
07:56So it's looking like it's just going to be a walk with George and myself.
08:00Yama has doubled back and he's decided that he wants to go and, uh,
08:04hassle George by the car.
08:06And yeah, sometimes these cats do these strange things.
08:10They get it into their head that there's something there that's better
08:15for him than out here walking around in the
08:18lovely bush and a beautiful sun.
08:22Anyway, I'm not Yama.
08:24I'm not in his head.
08:25And, uh, he must do what, uh, he feels is, is good for him.
08:30But, uh, yeah, I'm here with George.
08:34And just quickly, I don't want to harp on too much about it,
08:37but something struck me this past World Lion Day.
08:41And as I said earlier, I mean, I'm not doing a video specifically about World Lion Day.
08:46I did do a, uh, lion heart collective with my foundation.
08:52And I hope that every one of you participated in it and told, uh, my foundation and myself,
08:58what lions mean to you, uh, the connection that you have with them and why there is that connection.
09:04Because, you know, if you think about lions throughout the world, these are iconic animals
09:10that, um, are, are so symbolic of so many different things.
09:14Bravery, strength, uh, you know, power, majesty, you name it.
09:19And if you go around the world, as I have,
09:21and look in every major city, you, you always tend to see that lions, uh, are the representation,
09:30um, of, of, of, um, you know, the protection and or, um, you know, the royalty, um, of, of a,
09:40of a city.
09:41Um, it's, it's incredible.
09:42It's not tigers.
09:43It's not leopards.
09:45It's not, uh, jaguars.
09:47It's, it's, it's lions.
09:49I go, I go from Barcelona to, um, Trafalgar Square in the UK,
09:55to, uh, places in Russia, to places in South America.
09:59And everywhere in a major city or even smaller cities,
10:03you come across statues of lions.
10:06And there's obviously a reason for this, guys.
10:09Lions are iconic and symbolic.
10:11And, um, they, they mean, they mean different things to different people.
10:17I know what lions mean to me because they've been such a, an integral part of my life.
10:23Um, I, I have no problem saying that lions helped change my life.
10:28They changed the trajectory of my life.
10:30Um, Tau and Napoleon, if I didn't meet those two lions,
10:35I have no idea where I would be, um, today.
10:38I'm not sure I'd even be talking to you as an audience.
10:40Lions occupy less than 20% of their former habitat in Africa and Tau agrees.
10:58So,
11:16as
11:23You know I met those two lions, call it destiny, and they really did change my life. I'd always
11:29loved lions before that but in a different way. It was probably in the way that a lot of people
11:35you know would look at these majestic animals. We'd look at them and say wow let's just look at that
11:41beautiful golden mane and you know the size of them, big cat, power, male lions are very different
11:49looking to their female counterparts. They've got these big manes, they're bigger. So these are all
11:56the things that come to mind but obviously when you get to know a lion intimately on the level that
12:01I
12:02know lions they start to mean you know different things to you. So yeah lions have become
12:11an integral part of my life as many of you will know who follow my channel and they are really
12:17important to me as a species. What struck me and this is what I was getting at is this World
12:24Lion
12:24Day. I've been working with lions for almost 30 years. I couldn't believe I was saying that. It's
12:30almost 30 years. I started working with lions when I was 23 years of age and now you know I'll
12:36be 52
12:37in a month or two in a month or two's time. What are we in August, September, October. So in
12:41two months
12:42time I'll be 52 and next year I'll be 53. So 29 years working with lions very closely but what
12:52I'm
12:52really trying to get at and I'll get at it right away is the fact that when I started working
12:57with
12:57lions back when I was 23 years of age we used to have this statistic drummed into our heads
13:07about the fact that lions had lost between 90 to 95 percent of their historic range. They had been
13:15extirpated from these areas and although lions do exist and have some strongholds throughout sub-saharan
13:23Africa in many regions where lions once existed they're gone no more and that that struck me back
13:32then has been quite horrific and quite sad. Now that was almost 30 years ago and I heard numbers
13:39been thrown about of that there were only in the region of 20 to 25 000 lions left in the
13:46wild. Guys I
13:47must remind you this was almost 30 years ago and so in preparation for all the World Lion Day
13:56you know kind of ongoing I decided to just do a little bit of a deep dive into what the
14:03stats are
14:03saying now and I have heard things over the past couple of months years about you know lions are
14:09doing better here or or worse off there because of human line conflict but the number that continually
14:17gets thrown about is lions are estimated to be between guess the number 20 to 25 000 which means in
14:2730 years
14:29not much has changed in 30 years of me working with lions not much has changed guys they're still
14:37throwing the same numbers out so in other words did we have it wrong or are we just doing enough
14:45to keep
14:45those line numbers stable in a few areas bearing in mind that the figures over a hundred years ago or
14:53just
14:53on a hundred years ago figures were thrown about of lions being estimated to be in the region of about
15:00200 000. 200 000 lions were estimated to be walking this planet a hundred years ago that is crazy
15:13um and now we search here 20 26 and they're talking about the same numbers they're talking about
15:21there's estimated to be between 20 and 25 000 lions in the wild habitat and rewilding of habitat
15:31is you know the kind of the the the key word or the catchphrase or you know the the the
15:39word that's
15:39the being bandied about um these days it's rewilding and rewilding doesn't mean rewilding lines it just
15:46means rewilding habitat um and if we can do that guys oh my gosh um that would put a smile
15:54on my dial
15:54and it would make uh you know uh it would make the future look look really really bright but at
16:02the
16:02moment it's a it's typical human nature we tend to want to uh divvy up everything and put up fences
16:12and and and call it mine you know and what we've been trying to say to people here especially in
16:17this area by denner king is just guys we need to get over um this sense of entitlement and ownership
16:26we need to stop saying this is mine mine mine mine mine and start saying this is ours ours ours
16:31ours
16:31ours lift up the fences get rid of the fences let the animals do the roaming and let them decide
16:38where
16:38they want to go and just give them more and more and more space all right boy we're waiting for
16:47that
16:47naughty brother of yours oh whoa oh
17:18oh oh oh hello my boy
17:30oh oh oh why are you being so naughty today eh
17:48very odd behavior today from mr yam
18:00they had a little scrap now that i didn't catch on camera but uh can see he's avoiding george a
18:10bit
18:12yeah george can be a bit of a bully which is really interesting um because he's actually a sweetheart yes
18:22my boy
18:24he's a good boy hey georgie you're a good boy sometimes you just get very possessive when it comes to
18:34your brother
18:38me i'm super distracted today i don't understand what it is definitely haven't hasn't been one of um
18:48um our most i don't know what to call it um a walk where we are just a nice little
18:56group together tight tight knit
19:02together what you say big boy hey what you say
19:11what you say
19:14keeping a close eye close watch on yum yum hello my boy
19:22oh
19:24bye
19:36bye
19:42Let's go.
20:20All right guys, that's it for today's video.
20:23I hope you enjoyed that short little walk with George and Yame and all the little bits
20:29of info that you get in these videos.
20:31If you did, like and share.
20:33Okay, and until next time, from me, Kevin and all the lions here at the sanctuary, bye!
21:07Bye!
21:08Bye!
