“A city car sustained minor damage due to a collision with a lion” is a sentence we never thought we’d ever write, yet here we are.
Visitors of Taman Safari Indonesia II park in Prigen, East Java were driving through the lion enclosure recently when they got the shock/spectacle of their lives: two males fighting for alpha dominance in order to become king of the artificial jungle.
The rare occurrence was captured on film and went viral over the weekend.
As the vehicles in the enclosure stopped to witness the conflict, one red Toyota Yaris found itself in the way of one lion, who crashed into the car’s left rear lights.
The car’s owner later posted a picture of the damage on Twitter.
“This is what came out of the lions fighting. Honestly, I have no intention to seek compensation. I don’t even want to shake their paws,” he joked.
The park’s management yesterday said that the incident occurred on Jan. 22 involving two male lions named Debo and Frans.
The story goes that the pair sought to dominate one another in order to become the alpha male of the harem that is the enclosure.
“In the pride, there are eight female lions (Gendis, Garnis, Vivi, Fina, Pikanin, Mafuta, Feneli, dan Felisha), among whom there was one female who was in heat,” the park said in an official statement published yesterday.
“So the two lions were trying to show who among them was the strongest.”
The park added that Debo and Frans were not hurt, though they did not say which of them gained alpha male status.
We’d tell the lions that there’s no need to fight as there’s plenty of lionesses to go around, but we’re reluctant to subject our car to their wrath.
Reader Interactions