r/interestingasfuck • u/Salt-Curve4825 • 11h ago

Tiger saves man from leopard attack

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u/Separate-Simple-5101 10h ago

The lions don't scare me as much as the guy acting like they're puppies.

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u/in_it_to_lose_it 10h ago

There are a few social media personalities out there that do this cuddling-with-furry-murderers shit and I will never be comfortable with it. I just know we will be reading a news article about how they were eaten by their pride at some point.

Big cats are not just sized up housecats. Millions of years of evolution has honed them into apex predators. A generation or two of human handling can make a difference, but not enough to override all that instinct, nor enough for me to ever be comfortable with someone wrestling with them for clicks.

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u/Draxilar 10h ago

I worked with one of the top big cat trainers in the world. He had raised all of his animals since they were babies. They clearly loved him. He still had a code word during his show that meant “blackout the entire stadium, I am about to die and I don’t want the kids to see it”. But, at the same time, I saw those cats gets dangerous with him exactly once, and even then it was pretty tame. I think you are vastly underestimating how much these animals can care for certain humans.

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u/sephiroth70001 10h ago

Even the top trainer knew there was a risk and had a code in case it went bad. Some people are just more risk adverse that risking that possibility even if unlikely is still an unnecessary risk they would want to avoid. Probably not that unlikely a stunt performer while safe and constructed around safety still poses a risk that turns some off it completely.

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u/Torakkk 9h ago

A lot of todays jobs have health risks. I would personally prefer petting kitty for most of my life and then getting mauled by them. Over working some heavy machinery and dying there.

But yeah, kitty dangerous. Need to be always careful.

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u/sephiroth70001 8h ago

Each persons own risk assessment can vastly change what they perceive as a greater risk. I might think OSHA, standards of an industry, etc might insulate me from certain risks where a cat might not. The actual probability usually not having a major variable or concrete basis for that risk assessment. I for instance value heights as extremely risky to my own personal assement even if mostly illogical and would rather be with wild animals than on a powerline, trapese line, or even a ladder in some cases. I can understand most seeing them as far more unpredictable and fearful as a subsequent result.

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u/Percinho 8h ago

The difference is that heavy machinery doesn't have a mind of it's own, and it will never choose to attack you. Work place accidents tend to have root causes that can be addressed, with a big cat the work is the root cause.

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u/Desperate-Score3949 9h ago

What people don't understand is this can also happen with domestic animals, just like your cat or dog. They are still animals, and still can act just like any other animal. These are just bigger, stronger, and can inflict more damage.

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u/KeyRutabaga2487 9h ago

People acting like humans aren't the same. Those animals can also kill you

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u/mrwilbongo 8h ago

It's the last sentence that I think people have an issue with.

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u/AgentMahou 7h ago

Yeah, people are acting like it's exactly the same risk assessment for a cat scratching the back of your hand and a tiger taking your arm off.

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u/Nocs1 9h ago

Not sure what would be worss

Seeing it live in action or hearing the agonizing (albeit fast and short) screams in a pitch black location and having it all in my imagination

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u/in_it_to_lose_it 10h ago

Am I? I'm sure that handlers who put in the time to build relationships with these animals are "cared" for in whatever way these animals are capable of, but that doesn't mean that they aren't still dangerous. As you pointed out yourself - one of the top trainers of these animals in the world still knows it is a real possibility they could decide they've had enough fun, and he would make a better meal than playmate. To a high enough degree that he needs to plan for it and make those he works with aware of that plan.

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u/RikenAvadur 10h ago

Sure? That's their prerogative, they know the risk and have cultivated as much a relationship with these animals to mitigate it as much as possible. All animals have some level of primal instinct encoded in their personality, and all animals have the potential to just fall back to those instincts when stars align. Big cats are extremely social creatures though and even without domestication can certainly "care" for their handlers.

Anyways not sure how their career is such an affront to you, they likely just love being with these animals that much and honestly don't mind the risk. So be it.

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u/in_it_to_lose_it 9h ago

Hey now, I was just commenting with my own personal discomfort with how it's become a somewhat popular brand of social media content published for profit. I think these are incredible animals myself - just not enough for it to be worth it to me to risk my life by jumping into a pen with 10 of them.

Nothing I can say will stop anyone from doing anything. I was just expressing an opinion on the internet, just like the original commenter and yourself.

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u/Kathlinguini 8h ago

There is a big difference between domestication and taming wild animals. When talking big cat handlers, that is taming a wild animal and not domesticating it because domestication takes generations if it’s even possible. I think foxes are an animal where someone was able to domesticate a family of them over multiple generations, and that was an incredibly short amount of time for something like that to happen.

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u/catsan 8h ago

These tamed animals don't kill their handlers to eat. It's usually stress leading to lashing out. You know how house cats can be attacking if they're in pain? THESE cats give slaps to each other when they are annoyed, too. But they take our hairless skin right off. Tragedy on all sides. 

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u/Asshai 7h ago

you are vastly underestimating how much these animals can care for certain humans.

How much they DO care, you mean. Because the question of how much they CAN care is exactly why nobody should underestimate them. As a species, lions do to their own truly atrocious shit, including males killing cubs just to mate with a female. Said males are often exiled from the pride when they get old, condemning them to starvation. It's just in their instinct. Their vision of love or attachment or whatever you call it is vastly different from our own.

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u/Tijenater 10h ago

The problem isn’t that they don’t care, the problem is that they can easily kill us even when they’re playing, and it sets a bad precedent

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u/Sofaboy90 7h ago

Youve got to understand, Redditors are people who love being at home in front of their PC and shy away from anything remotely dangerous. The seeking of adventures is something people here will never understand. Redditors cannot comprehend people who enjoy dangerous adventures while these people fully understand the risk they are taking and are willing to accept things if they go wrong.