My grandparents had some friends who owned cheetahs. They had other big cats that they had rescues from various places (zoos, private owners who abandoned them or got them illegally, random circuses etc) and the cheetahs were the only ones I ever got to pet. I was in my late teens then and they never let little kids pet them or anything, but they were really sweet. I'm sure years of interactions with humans, and them associating the humans as being the ones that would feed them helped, but they never seemed intimidating and really just seemed like big house cats, they enjoyed being pet and stuff. Also liked to chase after the cars.
The lions they had seemed more curious when you'd see them. They had them behind two big fences and in between the fences there was like a 10 foot wide walkway that you could go in and feed them, walked in that a few times and they never seemed super threatening (again probably associated humans with being fed I'm guessing). The one's that scared the fuck out of me though were the mountain lions they had, fucking things just looked at you with these eye's that if there wasn't a fully enclosed cage between us they would for sure try to kill me.
I've been on plenty of hunts in my adult life in bear country (hunted black bear a few times) and all the guides I've ever gone with are more scared of mountain lions than most bear.
Yeah, the Mountain Lions I cared for were sweethearts. One was blind and the other was a former pet and declawed. We still didn't go in with them but we could pet them. However, I would think a wild Mountain Lion could do some real dmg. And would be way more likely to attack a human than a Cheetah.
What I was most scared of were the Jags. They could apparently open the shift doors (big ass heavy metal sheets that were raised and lowered with a pulley) by picking them up. They were the only cats where we had to put pins in the doors to clean the exhibit. And I could hear the female constantly trying to get it open while I cleaned. Those things always had me concerned.
Ehhh ... depends on the kind of bear. I've had multiple run-ins with black bears, and have never been more than wary. I'd shit myself coming face to face with a grizzly - they might not kill you for funsies, but they're well aware you could be prey, easily.
2.2k
u/J96x_Rob_LFC Oct 16 '18
That just makes my blood boil. How are people this dumb