girl and leopard, The Living Desert

Brilliant photo of an odd situation. Why was the leopard reacting that way? Food dangled behind the child, or was the child bait for the leopard? Haha.

Perhaps it just coulden't resist the "Childrens' Menu"

Could be that in the wild cats like to go after the smallest member of the herd and you don't get much smaller than that.

Has this child lost the instinct of "Fight or Flight"? Or is she a regular visitor?

Love the photo. and i love this zoo!

It could be the red pacifier in the child's mouth .....

I may be generalizing but I think this may be just leopard behaviour in general (I've never seen any other big cat in captivity behave this way so consistently). I worked in a zoo where a couple of leopards were kept and these cats frequently displayed very predatory behaviour / intent consisting of stalking and charges towards visitors.

It seemed that this was mainly / mostly directed towards children but I also remember once seeing this same predatory behaviour invoked by disabled people who were passing by the enclosures too.

It was both disturbing and fascinating to watch.

Great photo!