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VIDEO: 'Sofia The Lion Tamer' Goes Nose-To-Nose With Big Cat

When 3-year-old Sofia Walker was with her family at New Zealand's Wellington Zoo last week, she had quite a close encounter with, as The New Zealand Herald says, a grumpy lion who didn't like having his breakfast disturbed.

There was glass in between, but as you can see in the video taken by her dad, Sofia still had quite an experience. Twice, the big cat really pawed at the glass. But little Sofia barely flinched.

"She's always had this quiet confidence with animals, but she's certainly more confident with a lion than I would be, that's for sure," her father, Julian Walker, told the Herald.

His video clip has now been viewed about 1.3 million times.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.