This godlike beast was a cattle killer, but he was so mighty and beautiful even the angry farmers could not bring themselves to destroy him.

He was captured instead and named Mufasa and though he lived the rest of his days in captivity, he got a second chance at life. In the end it was his beauty that saved him and I wanted to capture his indomitable spirit with this photo. My heart constricted and my lungs froze at the sound of his crackling roar mere inches away from my ears. The bass made my chest resonate and the metal fence between us did not protect me from the primordial fear he awakened.
 
This was a testament to the fact that we owe our very existence to these magnificent predators: they hunted our ancestors for millennia and helped shape our very own evolutionary path in the process. Lions are now endangered, and there are more of them living in captivity today than there are left in the wild. I wonder what part of ourselves we stand to lose if we manage to eradicate them altogether?