I see lions in az pretty frequently. NEVER RUN FROM ONE. A big male lives on the ranch down by the river and I can see him watching me sometimes, you'll see the filck of the tip of their tail when they lay in the sun and then turn around to hide. There is big one 200+ guessing & he's a 5-7 year old, and he rules the area, ate most all the deer, and I saw couple of eaten elk calf skeletons earlier this year, probably cat killed but could be wolves too, lots of those run thru now. He's pretty cool. We have an understanding, he doesn't kill me and I don't kill him. We have been with 40 feet of each other. He didn't run from me and I didn't/don't t run from him. He sauntered several years away from me when I walked into some willows where he was sitting in the sun, he then turned around and looked over his shoulder with a "Are we actually going to do this?" look on his face, and I said no we are not going to do this, and he just slowly walked away, damn impressive, I have never seen him run. Only animal I have ever walked up on that didn't run; which was a little disquieting. Certainly he would eat any of my dogs if I let them run loose; they'd be a fatal mistake next time I found him, but I make the dogs stick close and everyone is fine.
So if they have lived 3 or more years, I'd say they're very smart, it's a pretty tough world for them. I see the lion kittens around and they are dumb as shit; they eat the feral domesticated cats in the barn, and those get shot when the get too big, they really have no where to go, as the bigger cats will kill them when they find then so they try to hide around the structures if they can, but the big males are damn impressive.
