'He looked heartbroken': 3-month-old lion cub rescued from men trying to sell him, finds safety at an African sanctuary and learns to roar for the first time

We, as people who desperately love cats - cats of all kind, big and small - we can never imagine doing anything bad to them. To us, a small lion cub is no different than a house kitten. They are fragile, they are growing, they need to be treated with love and care. Lion cubs are vulnerable the same way that any baby animal is. And although we can't imagine ever doing anything less than kind to them, there are people out there, unfortunately, who very much can.

The men who stole this precious lion cub and tried to sell it understood just how vulnerable the cub was, and they took advantage of it. They tried to use the cub's vulnerability for their own gain, passing him from human to human, looking for someone to buy him. There was no care, no love. If the cub hadn't been found and rescued when it was, before the damage was irreversible, there's no telling what kind of life he would have had. But he was saved. And he was given a second chance, a new life in a sanctuary in Africa, and there, he not only healed, he actually started to thrive.