Lion taming

Notable lion tamers

• George Wombwell, founder of Wombwell's Traveling Menagerie, raised many animals himself, including the first lion bred in captivity in Britain. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery, under a statue of his lion Nero.
• Isaac A. Van Amburgh, American animal trainer who developed the first trained wild animal act in modern times. He was known for acts of daring, such as placing his head inside the jaws of a wild cat, and became known as “The Lion King.”.
• Thomas Macarte, killed during a performance in 1872
• Martini Maccomo was a lion tamer in Victorian Britain.
• Carl Hagenbeck was a merchant of wild animals.
• Suresh Biswas, Indian circus performer popular in Europe in the 1880s for taming wild animals.
• Tilly Bébé, Austrian lion and polar bear tamer.
• Rose Flanders Bascom, first American female lion tamer.
• Mabel Stark was one of the world's first women tiger tamers.
• Clyde Beatty was among the pioneers to use a chair in training big cats.
• Gunther Gebel-Williams was a world-famous animal trainer for the Red Unit with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
• Ángel Cristo, the most famous lion and tiger tamer in Spain, known for his numerous accidents under lion and tiger attacks. In 1982 he won the Medalla de Oro del Festival Internacional del Circo.
• Martin Lacey,, animal trainer, owner of the Great British Circus, trained most of the tigers used in the ESSO TV advertisements in the 1970s.
• Martin Lacey Jr.,, son of Martin, an animal trainer and performer with Circus Krone in Munich.
• Irina Bugrimova, the first female lion tamer in Russia