She Was Left to Die as a 10-Day-Old Cub. Now This Lioness Runs and Throws Her Arms Around the Man Who Saved Her

In 2012, in Botswana, a tiny lion cub was in big trouble.

She was only about 10 days old. Her brothers and sisters had been killed by other lions, and her mother had abandoned her.

Without help, she would not have survived.

That’s when a young man named Valentin Gruener stepped in. He took the little cub in and raised her himself. He named her Sirga.

“I guess for her I’m like her species,” Valentin explained. “So I’m the only friend she’s got.”

Sirga grew up big and strong. Today she is a full-grown lioness. But she has never forgotten the man who saved her.

Every time Valentin opens the gate, she comes running. Then she stands up on her back legs, wraps her huge paws around his shoulders and gives him the biggest hug you have ever seen.

Valentin calls her “amazingly gentle for a very large cat.”

Because Sirga lost her fear of humans as a cub, she can’t be released into the wild. Instead, the farmer whose land she was born on set aside about two square miles of land for her to roam.

Valentin co-founded a conservation group, the Modisa Wildlife Project, to help protect Botswana’s lions.

Watch the moment she spots him. It’s pure love.

Have you ever had an animal that greeted you like this? Tell us about it below.