The Outsiders: Living With Lions

The hero of the show is Dave Salmoni, who's mission is to make the agressive lions more tourist friendly. "Dave Salmoni is in pursuit of lions deep in the Namibian bush. A pride is motionless in the golden undergrowth. They are watching as Salmoni walks into the wind, deliberately visible as he stalks these predators. This is not their ordinary prey. "Hey! Forget it! Get out of here! Good boy," Salmoni screams as a male lion explodes from cover. Here in the African wilderness, Salmoni is a man on a dangerous experiment. "This project allows me to do things with lions that have never been..."

He lives very close with lions. For six months he has decided to live with Namibia's whild lions aiming to make them tourist friendly so the lions somehow get used to tourists. While the goal is noble, one scientist (I forgot his name) said that lions are wild animals and they need to be wild to survive. Therefore, Dave's goals may be unattainable.

Dave's live is a fine line between communication with lions and competitions with them. When lions attack him he shows aggression back to them clearly indicating that he is bigger than lions.

While some may applaud Dave's courage and his work with lions, others have said that Dave Salmoni is risking his life in a very stupid way. I read several comments on ABC's website about what Dave wants to accomplish. None of them were positive. One of them even said if people like these men could be dyslexics. "Could all people that have special gifts with animals could they have this gift because they are also dyslexic? Could someone ask the many animal awareness gifted people if they are also dyslexics?" comments 63laura.

In any case The Outsiders is a very interesting documentary and I learned many things about lions and their relationship with a human being. For Dave Salmoni, I just wish him to be safe.

Written by Armen Hareyan