Stuffed Lion Toys & A Lion Whisperer?

Once upon a time, children wanted to be lion tamers, just like the ones they saw at once popular circuses. While circuses are not in vogue anymore, dreams of taming the lions is certainly a possibility with a little imagination and some stuffed lion toys.

You may have heard of the dog whisperer (Cesar Milan) and the horse whisperer (Monty Roberts), but what about a lion whisperer? Kevin Richardson is just that he has raised a pride of 38 lions to accept him as one of their own. A self-taught animal behaviorist, Richardson manages a 1,800 acre wildlife refuge in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he plays with and runs with the lions that live there. He even swims with them which in itself, is an amazing feat, given lions are not very partial to water. But, when Richardson calls out to a female lioness, she swims out to him and then takes her 350 pound body and wraps herself around him as if using him like some kind of a flotation device. Richardson says words can't describe it. It's something that you cannot tell people how you feel because you got to experience it to feel it and it's a privilege, privilege, privilege. You run out of superlatives.

While Richardson acknowledges his headliner title of lion whisperer, he says that is not really what he is; he explains that he could never go into a wild pride of lions and just walk up to them and say hey listen, I'm not a threat. Like anyone else that would get eaten if they did that, so would he. In 2008, two nights before the American television network ABC went to visit him, one of the lionesses (named Maditau) became dangerous. Richardson says she came flying at me. Like I've never seen her come before. She charged me, full-on charge. And stopped, literally half a meter in front of me, tail flicking around, eyes as mad as a snake. The lioness had stolen a newborn cub from a litter her sister had given birth to and she was going to kill it. Richardson wanted to step in to save it and could see that it was covered in deep cuts and tears. But, every time he moved, she charged him. In fact, she did so another three times after that. He said if I moved my arm, she would react. If I tried to take a step backwards, she would react. And the tail was winding up and I knew the next time it wasn't a joke.

While animal experts around the world are dubious when it comes to the relationship Richardson has with his wild cats, some acknowledge that his promotion of conservation of the species is a great thing. Richardson himself has said that he wants to save the species by showing the public the gentler side of lions.

Stuffed lion toys could never come close to what it must feel like to interact with a real wild cat, but they can certainly induce some dreaming about what it might be like. Stuffed lion toys are at their best when they are large and oversized after all, you want to try and come as close to the real thing as you can. You can certainly opt for much smaller stuffed lion toys, but why would you want to?