Here in the United States, PETA is freaking out over shows using live animals while filming. Elsewhere, nations don't really seem to have such qualms about bringing wild animals around humans. A Mexican TV show actually aired a live segment featuring a lion and a toddler, which is not the cute combination you might be thinking. In fact, the lion actually attacked the baby, and you can watch the whole thing unfold, below
Wild stuff does happen on TV shows, and for whatever reason, this series thought it was a great idea to seat a lion next to a mother and her small child. The child is the only person who seems truly uncomfortable with how close she is to the wild animal and begins to get fussy, which only seems to alert the lion more. Eventually, the lion jumps up and clamps down on the poor toddler's legs. The handler tries to soothe the situation, and creepily the mother just smiles while her toddler is freaking the heck out. You can hear some comments telling everyone to "relax" as the handler tries to get the lion off of the baby.
I don't know a ton about large cat behavior, but possibly the lion was just trying to play around with the toddler. Even if that's true, it's super unsafe for the baby to have contact with the lion and the lion to have contact with the baby.
As is the nature of the Internet, sometimes videos go viral that aren't super recent. In this case, the clip is from an episode of Con Sello de Mujer, a variety series that aired until 2007. The focus of the series was mostly on beauty, health and other daytime-safe sorts of topics, but during this episode, a lion was brought in with a handler and craziness ensued.
Eventually the lion was taken off-screen and everyone had a happy moment together.
Because that's exactly how people should react when their child is almost eaten. Obviously.
On the bright side, there are way more videos of animals on the internet doing adorable things than their are scary viral moments like these. I personally love the dog on the lawnmower or this dog who loves leafblowers. Ok, I'm clearly more into animals interacting with yard equipment than lions on a stage. It's a good opinion, though.
