Awake! photographer "throws" zookeeper to the lions

By Rado Vleugel

Posted on 10 19 2002

For more than a century Jehovah's Witnesses are waiting for the New World where "the wolf will actually reside for a while with the male lamb, and with the kid the leopard itself will lie down, and the calf and the maned young lion and the well-fed animal all together; and a mere little boy will be leader over them…" (Isaiah 11:6-9).

Their imagination is sometimes so strong that they pretend they already live in paradise where the lion lost his appetite for human flesh. George Koll, owner of the 77 Zoological Park in Florida Panhandle was giving a tour to several reporters from Awake! magazine, published by the Jehovah's Witnesses, when the Awake! photographer asked him to get in the cage with the lion for a picture.

The male lion, with the biblical name Samson, grabbed Koll by the neck and dragged him across the cage after the zookeeper slipped and fell in the cage. The Awake! photographer jumped into the cage with a stick and pushed the lion away from Koll.

The zookeeper's condition is serious but stable. I don't think the Awake! will publish the lion attack photo's…