Terrifying moment lion cub suddenly grabs screaming toddler live on TV

A Mexican mother got the scare of her life when a lion cub went after her little girl on live television. Fortunately, the toddler didn’t suffer any harm during the incident, which has gone viral more than ten years later.

Despite being ferocious predators, some lions have been known to become friendly towards humans, but even when this is the case, one always have to be careful when approaching his powerful creatures, even when it is only a cub.

A clip from a Mexican TV show was uploaded to YouTube in 2016, showing a lion cub unexpectedly grabbing a child’s leg with his mouth, causing the poor little girl to scream in terror. Read more on our Twitter account @amomama_usa

According to AOL, the footage was extracted from a 2006 episode of talk show “Con Sello de Mujer,” but it was only when it was in the video sharing platform that people from all over the world has seen it.

The video starts with the TV host talking with the cub’s trainers next to a mother and her small blonde daughter who’s sitting in the woman’s lap. The young lion is lying in the floor on a leash.

Calm reigns until the toddler starts to cry. While the mother tries to stop her daughter from making a fuss, it can be seen that the animal is very attentive to the little girl’s movements.

Suddenly, the cub, with the size of a medium dog, jumps on the child, barely contained by his male trainer, who did all he could to keep the strong animal from getting closer to the terrified girl.

During a few seconds of panic, the mother tries to take the child away from the lion’s grasp, as the female trainer asks her to stay calm and makes sure that the lion only bites and scratches the girl’s blue jeans.

It all happens very fast, and before the TV host can even react, the male trainer leaves the set with the cub, leaving his partner to comfort the frightened mother and child.

Uploaded by Xenuk on August 7, 2016, the 1-minute-long clip went on to be reproduced more than 2 million ties, receiving more than 4.000 likes and thousands of comments.

“She was telling them to calm down so that the lion didn’t get in a high arousal state because if that happened then a legit attack could occur this is why animals belong in the wild, not captivity and for our amusement either.”

-TheRoi’s, Youtube, July 2018.

Another attempt by a lion to attack a small child was also caught on camera at the Duba Safari Park in the United Arab Emirates.

The oblivious boy, Adam, was seated with his back against the glass wall of the lion’s enclosure when one of the felines tries to catch him with his paws. The child never knew what the lion was doing.