Seeking Refuge

My Year Visiting Big Cat Sanctuaries

The lion, hunched in place, let loose a guttural bellow unlike anything I’d ever heard. “What was that?” I asked the nearby volunteer. “A lion’s roar,” he said. “ That’s a lion’s roar?” I replied, incredulous. He held up a hand, said, “Listen.” From across the sanctuary, out of view, the young lion’s mother answered — again, that same peculiar, heaving rasp, more of a retch than a roar. “Not what…