"White Lion" Movie: Interview with Kevin Richardson the Lion Whisperer

Kevin Richardson is known as the 'Lion Whisperer.' He's one of only a handful of people on the planet who can say they really understand wild lions, by having spent years actually living with the big cats. Richardson has taken more than a decade of intimate experience with wild lions and produced White Lion - a feature film which takes viewers on a journey with a white lion cub. Along the way, we see this baby cat mature into adulthood, and experience all the dangers and excitement of survival and thriving as a male lion in the wild.

Kingdom of the White Lion is a lion conservancy. It lies 50 miles outside of the city of Johannesburg, and was established especially for Richardson's movie. In my Skype phone chat with Kevin, we discuss the realities of dealing with big cats, the fantasy fun of movies like Disney's The Lion King, and how many of Earth's predators are in danger of disappearing, because of humanity's constant encroachment on the wild.

When did you first know you would be a lion expert?

Basically I've been working with lions for about 12 years now. It was more of a sequence of events, rather than a single event. I've always enjoyed animals since I was young, but never in my wildest dreams I'd imagine I'd be working with lions, or making a career out of lions. But I met these two cubs 12 years ago, through a guy I was doing rehabilitation on. I was a exercise physiologist before I got involved with the cats.

You have a degree in that?

Yes. (laughs) It was quite a funny story. He told me to come check out the park, and if you enjoy it, come visit the cats as often as you want. So I took him up on it. I visited the cats every day for the next 6 to 8 months. Everyone could see a relationship was developing between the cats and I, especially him. He offered me part time work there. So I told all my clients, sorry for you, but I'm now going to be working at this park.

Those opportunities knock, and it's up to you to either embrace them or ignore them. I had always wanted to work with animals, but I always figured it'd be a hobby, rather than the career.

So you are entirely self taught about wild animals and lions specifically?

Yes, honestly, to this day, I've never read a book on animal behavior, especially when it comes to mammalian behavior in terms of lions, leopards or hyenas etc. It was time in the saddle - spending time with the cats - and realizing the misconceptions I had heard that people have about the cats. The do's and the don'ts were absolutely rubbish. Having spent so much time with lions, I realized people were all talking rubbish. I can't understand people could tar all lions with the same brush. That one lion means all lions are the same. That a lion is a lion is a lion - therefore they act this way. These myths come from never spending time with lions.

Just like stereotyping people.

Exactly. People don't like to believe that when it comes to predators, because they believe that lions, sharks, crocodiles - all the animals that have been made famous on National Geographic or Animal Planet... ones we've all grown up being scared of - admiring in one sense - but also scared in another. So immediately when you say you can form relationships with lions, people go 'Well, that's not really possible.' So yeah, here I am.

What do you think of Disney's Lion King? In a broader sense - how do you feel other films and TV shows have treated lions and wildlife?

Adults have no idea how much impact a movie like The Lion King has, they have no idea how much impact that has on people. You'd be surprised at how many people take extracts out of The Lion King and they say to me, 'Is this how a lion pride works?' And it's complete fiction! Lions don't operate like that in the slightest. Don't get me wrong, I was a huge fan of The Lion King, I still am, but it's just pure entertainment, if one can draw the distinction between reality and fantasy, but many people don't unfortunately.

For example, with hyenas. I've tried to educate people on facts about hyenas. I try to tell people what capable predators they are, but they say to me "Yeah, but they're just mindless, dirty rotten scoundrels! Didn't you see The Lion King?" So film makers don't realize the impact they can have when a movie is that big like The Lion King, of course they're not doing it on purpose. People need to be educated enough to see the difference between real life and a cartoon.

Why is White Lion as a film and potential educational tool so important?

In so many veins, it's important. The ultimate reason behind the film is a business venture for our main share holder. It does have the potential if it does well, especially in the states, to fund the conservancy that I currently run. It just creates extreme awareness about the plight of lions and white lions in Africa. People hopefully will start to think about the hunting of lions. We started realizing, once we started making the film, that there's many different spin-offs that could come from it - educating people, support for my conservancy. Sky's the limit really.

We didn't go about making a film for lion conservation. It was about realizing Rodney Fuhr's idea, our executive producer. It was his idea many years ago back in the 80's. It stemmed from his life out in the wild with lions. He's sponsored research for lions since the 1970's. He's quite a passionate chap. He knew that a young male lion's life out in the wild is a real struggle. Many people think the male lion is this lazy king. In reality, a male lion between birth and age 2 has a real struggle. There's around an 80% mortality rate. There's another struggle from 2 to 4 before you take on a pride of your own. You wander the land alone, before you're strong enough to take on your own pride.

Rodney Fuhr saw that struggle as a chance for a film, but doing a documentary, you'd have a real chance your young male lion would die before the film was done. So he put the project on hold in the 1980's We met in the 90's, and in 2004, he came to me and said 'you know about my dream.' He was confident in my rapport with the animals. And we started shooing White Lion in 2005.

Are you against circuses or lion acts like Ziegfried and Roy? Do they help? Or is it exploitation?

That's a good question. I think there are people out there who want to do good, but don't have the means to do it. I think circuses and zoos of yesteryear need to catch a wake up. We are in a new world - we think along the lines of a green planet etc. We can't operate zoos like we used to run them. Put lions in a cage, give them fresh food and water and pat ourselves on the back as if we're doing a good job. Humans do that all the time. We even do it with say our dogs or fish. We stick things in a cage, bowl or tank and brag about our collection of animals. Sometimes people have best intentions, and modern zoos have taken the initiative. They've spent loads of money. They realize they can't keep a lion in a 2 by 4 enclosure. But we really must ask ourselves, do circuses with animals need to exist anymore? I've seen a number of circuses with just human performers which were fine.

Talk about 'The Kingdom of the White Lion' - this was made especially for the film?

Yeah, quite right. Basically what happened is we were looking for a location where we could shoot most of the wild scenes for the film, to really let our lions roam free. These lions can be tiny little beasts in these great open areas. We never caged them. We caged the humans, and let lions roam free. So that's how we managed to achieve such beautiful and wondrous shots in White Lion. It's when we started shooting, and in the back of my mind, I knew we needed decent areas to house our actors after the film finished. I have 39 lions who live there. When the film began, many were small cubs, now five years later they're adult lions. We built the kingdom with that in mind.

Although you have great rapport with big cats, there must be a time when you were injured by one, or when one scared you. Can you share anything on that?

People always want to hear the horror stories. The truth being is that in the 12 years I've been with lions, I've never been hospitalized by a lion. I've been hospitalized by hyenas, but not a lion. It's not to say that I haven't had any close encounters. I've had controlled attacks.. meaning when a lion was warning me to back off.. that he'd had enough, or give him a break.

In an interview with ABC News, you said lion extinction rates are about 75%. It's a staggering number. Besides their beauty, why should we care? Why should the average person care if they go extinct?

It's an iconic creature in every society. In so many societies, they respect them. I just got back from South America, and in Lima, and all these places, they have lion statues. I'm not saying we should only care about lions, but the staggering, horrifying statistic is that their numbers have dropped in the past 15-20 years from 300,000 to about 23,000.

Across the globe, big predators are under threat... look at your grizzly bear... your polar bear... tigers.. the snow leopards... even spotted hyenas, which were once as common as flies. We don't want a situation whereby we must tell our children's children about lions as if they were dodo birds. It's not to say lions are the end all and be all animals of the planet, but it is an iconic creature and a symbol of Africa. It once roamed India and Asia, we had the Asiatic lion, which is now gone extinct. Until such time as people get their breeding under control, animals are under attack.

What's next? Any new movies or TV shows we should look out for?

I think I'll stay away from feature films for awhile, because that was a hell of a taxing experience for myself and for the animals. Producing and wrangling just is really taxing. I've just had a documentary series go out in the U.S.A. called The Lion Ranger - on Nat Geo Wild. I'll just continue to try to get as much publicity and awareness for the plight of the lions and other endangered animals.