This page highlights the combined skill set unique to this team who will embed themselves into the world of the lion to ensure they can live off the land once released. The Rescue Raise & Return philosophy for this program safeguards cubs and the potential for future human-animal conflict in several ways.
Lions taken into the program will have contact with a limited set of approved trainers. Over time this will allow trainers to be accepted pride members, and occupy a motherly role for instruction. At the time of release, contact will stop unless a life-threatening situation for the lion demands action. However, this will not familiarise the lions with the general public, and by limiting contact to set people and through the strict adherence to de-sensitising protocol which ensures the lions remain wary of human contact once they are released full-time in the wild.
The trainers will represent a surrogate family for the lions teaching them essential skills whilst allowing them to be lions. They will get to play, explore, and do things that all cubs do. Equally, essential skills like hunting, stalking, swimming, catching, and climbing will be encouraged, taught, and done in repetition to achieve a high level of skill and/or combat a deficiency. All cubs taken into the programme will be hand fed by trainers much like their mothers would behave. We have specific techniques to fast-track important skills, taught in combination with positive enrichment training.
This positive reinforcement stimulates a response or behaviour that is strengthened by the addition of praise or a direct reward. For example, if you do a good job at work and your manager gives you a bonus, that bonus is a positive reinforcer.
Shaping behaviour can be used to get an animal to do something that it would most likely not do by chance. It consists of taking a very small tendency in the right direction and shifting it step by step, reward by reward, one small step at a time to the ultimate goal. This is an essential tool in the rehabilitation of big cats. To achieve the results, we often use targeting and mimicry which is ‘learning by observation’. Cats are great at this.
Training through physical interaction between the lion and the trainer is an essential skill developed from the start. This can then allow for other critical developmental pathways like leash and command training. These will give our lions a set of ‘road rules’ which begins to help shape their decision-making process.
Leash training is most successful if it starts as young as 3 months with methodologies taking up to 6 months to learn and imprint. It allows safe exploration of new environments and situations or when injured. It teaches lions to be comfortable walking closely with the trainer. Over time and in the right conditions this allows the trainer to dispense with the leash full time and use voice commands where necessary.
Combining different training methods through the process is fundamental to the lion’s chance of long-term reintegration and survival in the wild. These are the foundation blocks by which all other skills can be taught and learned. It also allows for the safety of trainers in case of injury to the lion, routine vet work, and the ability to monitor the lion’s health.