There are different ways to engage with wild animals. One way is like Nick Brandt, whose photos from East Africa are breath-taking in the tradition of Peter Beard, and who says things like this: "What I am interested in is showing the animals simply in the state of being-before, in the wild at least, they cease to exist." To get that photo of the lion, for example, he says, "I went back to that lion-because I loved his face-17 days in a row just to sit there and watch him flat on his back, sleeping. On the 18th day, a storm finally came in, and the second that the wind ahead of the storm smashed into his face, he sat up, and I got four photos in 20 minutes." If you're in LA, he has a show up now.

Another way to engage with the animals is like Kelly Ann Walz, who kept an African lion, a cougar, a jaguar, a tiger, a bear, a leopard and two servals on her property 30 miles outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Tragically, Walz's bear, which she'd raised from a cub and named "Teddy," attacked and killed her Sunday. She'd entered his cage to clean it, thinking a shovelful of dog food was enough to distract the 350-pound animal. It is a terrible story. Her two young children were watching, along with a neighbor, Scott Castone, who shot and killed the bear.

And here is a totally crazy (and unrelated) Youtube video that emphatically illustrates the problems with the latter approach.