https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/...-sue-safari-22445651


Link to article and photos.

Shouldn't they be suing the lion?

Most indemnification contracts are quite simple - You understand you're currently in Africa. You entered Africa under your own free will. Africa is a deadly place. Most everything here can and will kill you. You accept full responsibility for your life from this point forward.

Not real news. Happened in 2015. This story is just a press release from their lawyer trying to pressure the tour company to settle.
kh

Have Tanzanian lions learnt how to unzip tent flaps ..... or maybe that dumb couple left them wide open?

I wonder how the sleazy lawyer handling the case will wangle this one.

Looks like ambulance chasing is alive and well outside the US.

They probably would have sued the tour operator if they hadn't seen any wildlife.

Some people just cannot be pleased.

At least they had a memorable experience.

Isn’t that what the safari experience is all about?

All good points. Opus, in my experience, lions are notoriously hard to serve with process and even if you were successful, they are rather anti-social and not likely to appear in court. They also tend to be judgment proof, unless you'd like a side of slightly chewed buffalo.

True. Lions are such assholes.

I agree with Fulvio. These idiots left their tent wide open. Zipping the door might not have kept out a determined lion but the wife would have been awake longer before she felt the lion "sniffing her back" as she stated in the article.

Mark

Sounds more like hyena behavior to me. Lions have names these days to uphold. They don't eat their tree hugger friends.

Fucking nature

Africa isn't Disneyland where the lions have feelings and can speak.

But I've heard they refer to humans as Retarded Springbok.

According to the animal rights people their just big friendly kitties. They would read this article and say it's fake. I've never seen a bunch of closed mind individuals.

Dave

Its a lot less paperwork if the Lions would actually carry them off and eat them. Naughty lion!

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
Sounds more like hyena behavior to me. Lions have names these days to uphold. They don't eat their tree hugger friends.

His name was Mark; and he wasn't sniffing her back. He was asking her how she wanted to die!

There are so many people in this world who, for their own sakes, and for ours, should just stay safely at home.

Perhaps one benefit of the pandemic is that now they have no choice but to do just that.

Amen. There was a case more than a few years ago where a French couple sued because a leopard took their toddler in Tarangire. Tragic case. I think they were prosecutors working on the Rwanda prosecutions. Letting toddlers wander around camp unattended is not a good plan. Parent's job, not the outfitter.

Zipping your tent; your job, not the outfitter's. Bad luck, your risk, not the outfitter's. It can happen and isn't that why you go?

Maneating is a fairly common occurrence but doe snot get much press coverage in Africa. Hippo and Croc account for most deaths.

The attraction fo Wild Africa is the untamed.

It’s a fundamental problem with any form of guiding these days. Wild, dangerous Activities are readily accessible, but punters are sold holidays on the basis of adventure, but with no real understanding of the risks.

In a former life I was on the edge of the safari business, but quickly realised that babysitting tourists was not for me: i had a 40 something J’burg blonde divorcee in a party I took down to the Lower Zambezi. Despite strong warnings re crocodiles and the river I found her stark naked waist deep in the river washing her hair, with a large croc eyeing her up from about 30 yards away. I asked her to get out the river whilst I kept the rifle on the croc which I really didn’t want to shoot, and no I was nt looking at her great big numbies!

The trouble is people no longer understand taking responsibility and there is very much a blame culture these days. If you in an area with lions you have to be very careful, as for lion a man or woman is just a snack. Tourists going to Africa is just another tick on their bucket list.

Hunters as a breed are very different - we work with nature and usually fully understand the dangers - indeed probably over exaggerate cos it makes the stories so much better.

So, let's see, it's all their own fault. They are put up in tents, right? Are they supposed to bring their own accomodations? There are camp sites in the USA that DON'T ALLOW soft sided campers or tents because of bears. Hmm, wonder why that is? Who is responsible? Do you think that tent camping might be accepted because the people running the camp have deemed it safe? After all, they are the experts aren't they? Isn't that why you hired them?
Still, it keeps wonderful humans like jdollar and opus1 happy!
Peter.

Literally millions of tourists have camped out in tents in lion country over the years. Millions more of African live amongst lions each day. The odds of a lion attack are far beyond minuscule. So the guides correctly believed that a lion attack was virtually impossible.

This is like blaming the vacation rental company for a shark attack.

Shit happens, welcome to Africa, deal with it.

quote:

There are camp sites in the USA that DON'T ALLOW soft sided campers or tents because of bears. Hmm, wonder why that is?

Quite a significant difference between the habits of a bear and a lion.

Bears have acquired the knack and formed a habit of shredding canvas, among others, while lions don't, though leaving the flap open can have dire consequences and not only from lions, leopards and hyenas.

Venomous snakes and other creepy-crawlies will also seek refuge and comfort within a warm tent, some with equally dire consequences.

However, for those who feel adventurous and want to be in close contact with nature, its their privilege to do so.

Stupidity is genetic and cannot be fixed.

Lucky it wasn't a Cobra. They would both be dead.

Once while on a game drive in Chobe National Park in Botswana, we had a guide, a woman actually, who was quite the daredevil. She would approach elephants in the vehicle, with my wife and I, and a few other people, in open seats in the back.

She would creep up to them, and get far too close for comfort. On two occasions, the elephants began to approach us in a menacing manner, and she hurriedly put the vehicle in gear and drove away.

After this, I told her, politely but firmly, not to do that anymore. I explained that it was too dangerous, that elephants can be violent when provoked, are unpredictable in any case, and should not be tempted or taunted. What would she do, I asked her, if her vehicle's engine stalled when she needed to escape fast?

She laughed and told me not to be frightened. I then told her that if she wanted to keep this up, she needed to give me an elephant rifle or take us back to base. (By the way, there was, of course, no firearm of any kind in the vehicle - and I did not tell her that on prior trips I had hunted these same elephants or their cousins across the Chobe River in the Caprivi Strip.)

She behaved responsibly for the rest of the drive.

Point being that one should not meekly do whatever any tour outfitter or guide thinks is safe. There are good ones, and bad ones, and none of the latter should be trusted to have even the most basic level of common sense.

On the other hand, I don't blame the tour organization in this case, since the couple clearly failed to zip up their tent flap. That was just stupid.

As I said above, people like these two should just stay home.

Many moons ago on my first night in the Selous I foolishly left my tent flaps open because of the humidity. A Hyaena popped the zipper on my mosquito net.
My first night at Royal Kafue lions roared around my hut all night, failing to wake me. Fairgame reckoned they were attracted by my snoring but that couldn't possibly be true! The next night a bull elephant feeding off figs on the roof then knocking over the 40 gallon drum with my shower water did manage to wake me. He was still blocking the door when I tried to go out in the morning.
If you haven't hunted there yet, why not?

Did they think the lions are locked up in their cages at night?

Have slept out before, but if I've got a tent, I'll zip the flap. Never had anything bigger than a scorpion, frog, spider, or rather large lizard come through a zipped tent flap. Only the scorpion got me. The rest of us just lived together.