Discovery has a program called "Into the Pride" with Dave Salmoni, where he tries to live closely with a pride of lions to decrease their territorial aggression

Discovery has a program called "Into the Pride" with Dave Salmoni, where he tries to live closely with a pride of lions to decrease their territorial aggression against humans in a safari zone (because if they don't bring in tourist dollars they get put down and a new pride gets brought in). The lions certainly seem to understand that a spear is something they don't want to get close to. Even the overly aggressive seem to respect it, which seems absurd for a stick. The question is how long it took before animals started recognizing weapons. It could simply be a product of a stick increasing the persons silhouette, which makes us 'bigger' and the speed we can move it around at. Similar to why you're supposed to hold your arms out and wave and shout if you see a bear.