On our second weekend in PE we decided to check out Seaview Lion Park. There are 2 game parks very close to our house and we had heard that this one was the lesser of the two, aka the "chaucy" park. So not wanting to be awed and then disappointed we decided to start low and work our way up. Oh and we had heard that if you show up at noon on Sundays you can watch them feed the Lionesses. Yes please!
The park turned out to be 15 minutes from our house. You pay 20$ for a family of 4 and then drive yourself into the park looking for wildlife. Like you're on the Kilimanjaro Safaris at Disney but driving yourself. How cool is that??? This by the way would have been waaaay cooler had we been there in our own 4x4 vehicle and not a rented, orange Kia Sorento but we promised ourselves that we would correct that when we went to our next park.
The first thing we saw was a mama Giraffe with her baby.
We stopped for a long time to watch them. I even got out of the car and stood on top to get a better view. Then we made our way through more of the park and spotted springbok, and many more giraffes and zebras.
We finally got to the Lion enclosure. We were a bit early so we decided to walk around and check out the different big cats before feeding time. At first I was tragically underwhelmed. I mean they have Lions like this at the Houston Zoo and just like at the Zoo all the Lions are ALWAYS sleeping. I have often wondered if the Lions are not just animatronics with a breathing mechanism installed to make them look more life-like. This guy was at least rolling all around which was pretty funny.
The Tiger was awake. I Love Tigers.
Then it got really cool really fast. The question of the day was "how does one feed Lionesses?" the answer is: very carefully. This involves loading a bunch of carcass haunches into the back of an open pickup, letting the cats pull them out and then driving away hoping they're satisfied with what you gave them. As you can see in the video, one Lioness was clearly NOT satisfied and charged the truck as it came back around. Yowza!
After that we wandered down to see some Lions. They had not yet been fed and were obviously hungry. They were in a pen with some fencing that may have been appropriate if you were trying to contain a Border Collie or some medium sized goats. So just being there was kind of thrilling.
Plus they were glaring at us and clearly fantasizing about how we would taste. Then a little kid got away from his dad and ran down the side of the enclosure. It totally brought out the predator/prey drive in this one Lion and he charged after the kid on his side of the fence. The dad was yelling "don't run, don't run!" and Jeff was like "get your camera ready... 'Toddler eaten by Lion at Seaview Game Park' is sure to go viral on YouTube and it's goin' down!" It was SCARY. The hairs on the back of my neck were on end when you saw the speed and power the things moved with.
That Lion was mad that the kid and all the rest of us were on the wrong side of the fence and given the power of the beast, his obvious motivation and the dubious holding power of the fencing, we decided to back slowly away muttering "nice kitty" soothingly under our breath. That experience alone was worth the 20$ entrance fee. Talk about up-close and personal!
After that we headed up to the main lodge where they keep the 'baby' lions and tigers that are part of their breeding program. For 9$ you can go into their enclosure and hang out and pet them and take pictures. Yeah. I was all about doing this until I realized that the word 'baby' is relative and the newest litter was about a year old. There was NO WAY I was letting Sasha and Teddy climb into an enclosure with Lion and Tiger cubs twice their size. Especially not after seeing how fast a Lion can eat a kid if he wants to. Same experience with no fencing? No thanks! Here's a vid of one of the workers trying to get a tiger 'cub' to come with him to visit with the guests:
After that we hung out and just watched the young cats. They were very playful and endlessly entertaining. One Tiger climbed a tree and looked like he was going to try to jump out of his enclosure! Only in Africa...
FOR VIDEO CLICK HERE
On the way out we enjoyed the view:
And spotted a few more animals on our drive out of the park:
So here's my pitch... we lived in South Korea for 2.5 years and NOT ONE of you punks out there came to visit us. So get your butts on-line and start looking at plane tickets. Free lodging, food and tour-guide services await you. I mean this is 15 minutes from the house and it's the LAME animal park! We could do this in the morning and then still have all afternoon to drink margaritas by the pool. OR we could do the margaritas in the morning and then take turns running past the lion enclosures wearing meat necklaces. Could be fun....
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