A male lion at a Japanese zoo has been filmed trying to pounce on a little boy with his back turned before crashing into a protective glass wall. 
 
 The incident was captured by a visitor to Chiba Zoological park in the eastern part of Tokyo. 
 
 With his back turned, the child does not notice the stalking 185kg lion until it collides with the glass. 
 
 The glass display was introduced in April to allow visiters a closer look at the large predator. 
 
 Animal rights campaigners have said the video highlights why keeping wild predators in such captivity is both cruel and dangerous. 
 
 Lion expert Adam M. Roberts from Born Free USA told The Dodo: "Lions are natural wild predators and the child in this video, especially when turning his back to the massive feline, becomes prey in the animal's eyes. 
 
 Ever Wondered What It's Like to Have a Pet Lion? 
 
 "The firm glass wall held the lion inside his enclosure, surely frustrating his innate instincts. 
 
 Where not to visit if you love animals 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 show all Where not to visit if you love animals 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1/9 Monkey shows Chimpanzees are forced to perform demeaning tricks on leashes and are often subject to cruel training techniques. Animals who are confined to small, barren enclosures and forced to perform unsurprisingly show symptoms of stress and depression. Chimpanzees have been documented rocking back and forth, sucking their lips, salivating and swaying against enclosure perimeters in distress. Getty Images 
 
 2/9 Swimming with dolphins Some marine parks use bottlenose dolphins in performances and offer visitors the opportunity to swim with dolphins. Unfortunately, people are often unaware that these animals are captured in the wild and torn from their families or traded between different parks around the world. Getty Images 
 
 3/9 Tiger shows Tigers are forced to live in an unnatural and barren environment and have to endure interactions with a constant stream of tourists. Since tigers never lose their wild instincts, across the world they are reportedly drugged, mutilated and restrained in order to make them “safe” for the public. However, every year, incidents of tiger maulings are reported at this type of tourist attraction. Getty Images 
 
 4/9 Donkey rides Sunning on the beach is great for humans – we can take a quick dip or catch a bite to eat when we get too hot or hungry. But it's pure hell for donkeys who are confined to the beach and forced to cart children around on the hot sand. Some donkey-ride operators at beach resorts in the UK even keep the animals chained together at all times. Getty Images 
 
 5/9 Marine parks Some parks confine orcas to concrete tanks and force them to perform meaningless tricks for food - many die in captivity. Orcas are highly intelligent and social mammals who may suffer immensely, both physically and mentally, when they're held in captivity. Getty Images 
 
 6/9 Canned hunting Lions are confined to fenced areas so that they can easily be cornered, with no chance of escape. Most of them will have been bred in captivity and then taken from their mothers to be hand-reared by the cub-petting industry. When they get too big, they may be drugged before they are released into a "hunting" enclosure. Because these animals are usually kept in fenced enclosures (ranging in size from just a few square yards to thousands of acres), they never stand a chance of surviving. Getty Images 
 
 7/9 Running of the Bulls Every year, tourists travel to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. The bulls who are forced to slip and slide down the town's narrow cobblestone streets are chased straight into the bullring. They are then taunted, stabbed repeatedly and finally killed by the matador in front of a jeering crowd. The majority of Spaniards reject bullfighting, but tourists are keeping the cruel industry on its last legs. Getty Images 
 
 8/9 Horse-drawn carriages City streets are no place for horses. The animals toil in all weather extremes, suffering from respiratory distress from breathing in exhaust fumes as well as numerous hoof, leg and back problems from walking on pavement all day long. As easily spooked prey animals, horses subjected to the loud noises and unexpected sounds of city streets are likely to be involved in accidents, even deadly ones. Getty Images 
 
 9/9 Zoos The zoo community regards the animals it keeps as commodities, and animals are regularly bought, sold, borrowed and traded without any regard for established relationships. Zoos breed animals because the presence of babies draws visitors and boosts revenue, yet often, there's nowhere to put the offspring as they grow, and they are killed, as we recently saw with Marius the giraffe in Denmark. Some zoos have introduced evening events with loud music and alcohol which disrupt the incarcerated animals even further. EPA 
 
 "But luckily for the family, if the barrier had not held the consequences could have been catastrophic." 
 
 Zookeepers have insisted, however, the lion only wanted to play with boy and always reacts this way whenever it sees young children. 
 
 The Independent has contacted the zoo for comment. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites.
– In a crazy video taken over the weekend at a Japanese zoo, a lion can be seen attempting to pounce on a toddler, only to slam into his glass enclosure headfirst. Per the Independent, Tokyo's Chiba Zoological Park, which introduced the glass enclosures in April, says that the lion does this often when he sees children and, though it looks terrifying, it's actually a playful move. But an animal rights activist tells the Dodo it appears the lion viewed the child as prey. "If the barrier had not held the consequences could have been catastrophic," he says.