“African Cats,” Sita’s star vehicle and this year’s Earth Day release by DisneyNature, doesn’t at first seem like an obvious nail-biter. Gorgeous shots of Kenya’s extraordinary Masai Mara grasslands open the film before it homes in on the animals that steal the show: Sita and her mischievous cubs, and Fang, the patriarch of a large pride of lions and their playful offspring. But you know what’s coming next: The breathtaking scenery is only a backdrop to the life-and-death struggles that play out between these cat “families” and the animals that prey upon them. It’s the “Lion King” in the flesh.

The Mara is one of the few remaining places in Africa where lions, cheetahs and leopards live in large numbers and in close proximity. The River Pride, a dominant group of lions led by “Fang,” roams the hills south of the Mara River. A second group of male lions—a powerful father and his four sons—rules the area to the north. The River Pride is threatened by these lions from the north who are awaiting the perfect opportunity to move in, depose Fang, and take over his pride. Meanwhile, Sita must defend her babies against the lions, as well as ravenous hyenas and even other cheetahs.

The young cheetah and lion cubs are gosh-darn cute, and the filmmakers make the most of their playful antics and mewling cries to set the stage for the inevitable clashes between protective mothers and their hungry adversaries. The films’ directors insist on building suspense by creating a very human story line intent on driving home the point that a mother will do anything to protect her babies. But the story and its corny script get in the way of the pictures unfolding on the screen. The movie would have been wonderful to watch with music alone, sans narration.

That said, I loved the film’s high definition cinematography and “you are there” shots. I’ve been on two safaris, including one in the Masai Mara. I saw first-hand lions eating their way through the steaming belly of a zebra they’d just killed, and watched a cheetah kill an eland then effortlessly haul it up into a tree for safe-keeping. The filmmakers show the animals exactly as I remember them in the wild, foregoing special effects, animation, and other cinematics in favor of spellbinding close-ups of animal eyes, rippling muscles, and jaws dripping with fresh blood.

DisneyNature hopes “African Cats” will do more than entertain. The company is partnering with the African Wildife Foundation in a campaign to “Save the Savanna” where these big cats live. Throughout Earth Week, April 22-28, a portion of the proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to support AWF’s program to protect the Amboseli Wildlife Corridor. The corridor is the expanse of land that stretches across the Savanna between three national parks in Kenya. Lions, elephants, cheetahs, zebras, and other wildlife traverse it when they migrate and look for food and water. AWF’s work will help insure that the corridor stays open and wild enough to help these animals thrive despite the pressures put upon them from tourism and encroaching development.

NOTE: “African Cats” is sometimes graphically violent and may not be appropriate for children younger than 13. The scenes of predators chasing down and devouring their prey are totally realistic – which means they’re brutal and bloody. At one point, the little girl sitting next to me in the theater just put her head down and covered her ears.

African Cats is DisneyNature’s third Earth Day feature. Here’s a review of last year’s film, “Earth.”

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In early March, Parsons killed an elephant and later posted the video footage on his website. Outrage was swift and explosive as the news went viral, leading to widespread condemnation and prompting some of GoDaddy’s biggest customers to switch to other web hosts (I am currently a GoDaddy customer but am in the process of switching the Big Green Purse domain to a different host).

Parsons told ABC News he shot the “problem” elephant at the request of local villagers who were trying to prevent the animal from crushing their crops. Parsons also claimed that the elephant, which he shot in the middle of the night, provided needed food for the hundreds of people who showed up in the morning to butcher it.  The way he talked, he implied that he has killed elephants and other big wildlife in previous years as a favor he bestows on demand.

Here’s my problem with his rationale:

First, who is Parsons to decide that he should shoot elephants (or any wild animal) just because villagers want them gone? Yes, elephants can destroy crops; the reality is, they’re encroaching on more human settlements as their own territory gets squeezed into smaller and smaller tracts. But is killing them the answer? Parsons claims his company hosts half the websites in the U.S., which if true, makes him a very wealthy man. Surely, if he has the money to fly to Africa and go hunting, he has the money to fund wildlife managers who can work with villagers to both keep elephants alive and protect vulnerable crops.

Second, if Parsons is so concerned about helping to provide food for a hungry village, why not donate funds to dig wells to irrigate crop land, or support efforts to educate villagers in ways to increase self-sufficiency? The money he spent on his killing trip could probably have bought hundreds of bags of seed, fertilizer, agricultural tools, and training to help feed the people Parsons uses to justify his hunting.

Third, Parsons claimed he shot a problem “bull” elephant – a male that would not have a big impact on the entire herd. Not so. “”The ‘bull’ that GoDaddy CEO, Mr. Bob Parsons, brags about appears to be a young female,” Joyce Poole, an elephant researcher and conservationist who has studied the animals for over 30 years, told Discovery.com.  “Was Mr. Parsons so ignorant that he was not able to sex the elephant he killed, or was his claim that the elephant was a bull just one more example of his macho arrogance and misjudgment?”

“The fact that he put out his video for the whole world to see shows both,” she added.

Fourth, the GoDaddy CEO is planning on doing this again next year!

Said People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA):

“It has been well established that elephants are capable of experiencing emotions, including joy, anger, grief, and sympathy. They play with each other and can reason and use tools; they have exceptional memories and form enduring bonds with other elephants. They work together and comfort and protect each other. Elephant offspring stay with their mothers for many years—males for up to 15 years and females for their entire lives. Killing a single elephant can devastate a family, and their mourning ritual over the death of a family member rivals any that we humans have developed.

Parsons is hiding behind the lame claim that killing elephants helps farmers in Africa whose crops are damaged by the animals. In fact, there are ample effective and nonlethal methods to deter elephants from crops, including using chili-infused string and beehives on poles to create low-cost “fences.” Instead of coming up with flimsy excuses for killing these highly intelligent and social animals, Parsons should use his wealth to fund humane solutions to human/elephant conflicts.”

All that aside, I hate the way Parsons uses boobs and babes to market GoDaddy. I wish race car celebrity and “GoDaddy Girl” Danica Patrick would give the guy the finger and find someone else’s car to drive.

You can send a message to Bob Parsons on PETA’s website.

If you currently use godaddy.com to host your site and want to move it, here are some alternatives:

• Register.com
• GreenGeeks
• Venovix Through the end of April, Venovix is offering offering GoDaddy users free domain migrations for donating $2 per domain migration to the International Elephant Foundation. In addition, GoDaddy users who switch their web hosting to Venovix will receive their first six months of hosting (a $60 value) free with a one-year commitment. Venovix is also donating 20% of all hosting revenues generated from its NoDaddy promotion to the International Elephant Foundation.

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