Dreams of the Wild: Schizophrenic Man’s Lifelong Obsession with Lion Taming Ends in Viral Zoo Mauling
In a harrowing scene captured on multiple cellphones, a 19-year-old man’s lifelong, delusional quest to become a lion tamer ended in a brutal mauling Sunday morning at Brazil’s Arruda Câmara Zoobotanical Park. The victim, identified by local media as Gerson de Melo Machado, deliberately scaled a towering 26-foot perimeter fence and shimmied down a tree into the lioness’s enclosure, where he was immediately stalked by the big cat. Viral footage shows the chilling moment the lioness, named Leona, paced below the tree, waiting with predatory patience before launching her fatal attack as Machado reached the ground, his attempts to flee into nearby brush proving futile as she dragged him back into view in a relentless assault.
The zoo confirmed the “extremely sad episode,” stating Machado “did not survive his injuries,” and the park was closed indefinitely for investigation. Behind the shocking video lies a tragic history of severe mental illness; Correio Braziliense reports Machado had been diagnosed with schizophrenia—a condition shared by his mother—and was monitored since childhood by child welfare services. In a poignant detail that underscores the depth of his fixation, counselor Verônica Oliveira revealed Machado once stowed away in an airplane’s landing gear, convinced it would transport him to Africa to fulfill his lion-taming destiny, a delusion that ultimately led him to breach the zoo’s barriers.
Amid public outcry, the zoo issued a firm statement that the lioness will not be euthanized, calling the incident “completely unpredictable” and a result of deliberate trespassing. “Leona is healthy, does not exhibit aggressive behavior outside the context of the incident, and will not be euthanized,” officials emphasized, noting the animal is stressed but stable. The tragedy casts a stark light on the intersection of unchecked mental health crises and public safety, leaving a community to mourn a young life consumed by a fantasy that collided, with fatal consequences, against the unyielding instincts of the wild.
