The Lion Man

- Season 4

(2008)

In this season premiere, a fairly quiet day in Craig's life allows the viewers to catch up with the present state of affairs in Zion Wildlife park. He, staff and visitors enjoy the white and colored, adult and cub tigers and lions. After hours, Craig worries about the lion pride social dynamics. He hoped to divert the adolescent lions with a novelty woodland walk, but initially yields unrest, then helpless behavior typical for tame cats only. A refrigeration problem with the meat supply looks in the weekend risks to be a costly mishap.

Craig travels to colleague Ed Hearn's wild park in South Africa to pick up two cheetah cubs. These smallest of the big cats are most vulnerable, but adapt best, also to living with people. First he visits two tiger cubs he brought there earlier. Next he joins a trip hoping to see white lion cubs in the wild, but the nature reserve manager can't accept any visitor, not even such an expert.

On his South African trip to collect two cheetah cubs, Craig joins a trip to search for wild lions, which brings him dangerously close to elephants, the largest land animals. Back in Zion Park, Gandor's broken tooth is an even harder problem in Craig's absence.

While his South African cheetah cubs are in quarantine, Craig comes home take stock of things back in Zion Gardens. He enjoys a school visit as star in a children's TV show. Next the presenter visits the park, for a photo-shoot with him and some cats, so grooming the cubs, dirty from out- and indoors frolicking, comes on top of the staff's daily chores, such as leash training and socialization.

Craig is back in South Africa, where both 'his' cheetah cubs remain in prolonged quarantine, being diagnosed with a parasite viz. a respiratory infection. Craig helps the vet nurse them, but one dies and the other is declared incurable, so neither can come to New Zeland. His only hope now are two 'spare' cubs' Ed Hearn has also quarantined, but those are older, wilder and will take quite a while to get used to him by feeding.

While he waits for the next cheetah cubs' quarantine, Craig is back. After greeting his cats, he must concentrate on helping the vet's crew sedate an old lion so the dentist can operate his badly infected tooth. Meawnhile some enterprising lion cubs not only prove hard to leash-train, they keep escaping, so Moses must improvise a higher enclosure.

Craig is back in South Africa to collect Ed Hearns's semi-wild pair of 'spare' cheetah cubs. First he visits two white tigers he bred and gives the South African staff pointers how to handle them during a visit to the whole park with them. After the cubs get a clean bill of health, Craig takes the time to exchange expertise with a TV commercial shoot team starring a lioness. After some customs paperwork, the cheetahs are tranquilized and fly to New Zealand, where they start another quarantine month.

The cheetahs have arrived in Zion park, but running champions need space, meaning the large enclosure Zion's pride of lazy lions never really uses. So those are moved to a temporary one. It's a lot of hasty work, but even moving the lions goes well. A ministry vet finds all quarantine rules met, so the hyper-nervous cheetahs can be moved.

The cheetahs are slowly getting used to Zion park's daily routine, such as feeding. Craig also receives new deer and the vet injects them preventively. Mozes continues building extra enclosures, but some cubs find their own playful use for his tool belt. An Australian make-A-Wish minor gets an exceptional tour behind the screens.

Most of this season final is taken up by recapitulating the main story, Craig's troublesome South African trips to get Zion's two first-ever cheetah cubs. Furthermore we see some funny scenes concerning socializing cubs in the park, escape tendencies and their first leash-less excursion to an island, where the tigers enjoy swimming, one lion somehow also strolls off to the other river bank.