Let's explore both sides. I will explain.
There are strong motivations to humans stealing away cubs from their mothers. They can be used in exhibitions as mini celebrities for cub petting and many people would love to take photos of them. In addition, many native volunteers pay money to look after these captive cubs. All of these can turn into a nice profit for their captors. If the cubs grow older, they can be used to breed and be recycled for 'canned hunting.' Boom. Dead without a fight. Money.
Link below explains this harsh reality.
In this story, after they have captured one of Mr Senior's mates in a chase hunt, they discovered that she was pregnant and thus his daughter was born in captivity (The mother wouldn't make a appearance because she died after giving birth). To condition the cub that she was in natural surroundings as a result of human's kindness, they attach a shock/tracking collar and let her roam outside in the area for a time.There is no way to escape far with the collar attached. The collar would produce shocks if she didn't return in time. During this period, I plan to let her interact with the protagonist through a series of events. Mr Senior would try and encourage her to do so as well. Maybe he introduces her to him as part of a training program as a pretext for getting closer.
As the months pass, Mr Senior hopes the cub can fall in love with her, as well as helping her to escape together with new skills. Yes, it's madness, but rashness have no boundaries. It has to be done before she gets too big and gets selected to be a 'trophy'. This is where the 'time limit' comes in.
----
2nd suggestion:
It's possible that another pride, or other animals has taken away the daughter during some major event. (Maybe they were separated due to earthquakes/pride wars..etc.) In that case, we can also let the protagonist interact with the female for a period before the event happen to have a strong bond. Then that RP mission might be all about finding her. What means he uses to get there, depends on his morals from his 2 squabbling mentors. (We probably need a more villians/interesting characters along the way to keep the journey interesting.)
(I'm not sure why other tribes would kidnap the daughter unless she's extra special I think.)
[Let's brainstorm more.
]
Thankfully, they won't interfere in the story until the very end. (That means no pesky hunters or tourists wandering around! The humans will be mentioned from time to time, however.)
