Wiild Heearts to Seet Frree If you spent any amount of time online at the beginning of March, chances are you either saw or heard something about an eccentric private zoo owner in Oklahoma called Joe Exotic and some lady down in Florida named Carole Baskin. The Netflix documentary Tiger King: Mayhem, Murder and Madness provided some much-needed relief from the goings-on in the world with a cast of larger than life characters, and an interesting yet depressing insight into America’s fascination with keeping and exploiting wild animals as pets and tools for profit. But just how big is the problem? While there are several Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) accredited establishments across the United States, if you did indeed see the Tiger King documentary, you will be well aware that there are many ‘roadside zoos’ not held to such welfare standards. Although it is thought that current estimates of pet big cats in the United States are overblown, the exact number is unknown as a detailed census has not been conducted for over a decade, and not every individual is registered. Often, the numbers have been said to be as high as tens of thousands but in reality, the US tiger population is more conservatively estimated as under 5,000 (including the 2,000 or so kept in accredited facilities). While most wild animal owners keep tigers, there are also reportedly large numbers of pet lions, leopards, and ligers/tigons (lion-tiger hybrids) as well as primates and large reptiles. Thankfully, the UK’s appetite for exotic pets is far lower. Animals that are usually registered include ostriches, wild boar and smaller creatures, though at last count there were 13 tigers and two lions registered. While not outlawed, it can be difficult to obtain a dangerous animal license as per UK legislation. Keeping tigers as pets and for show, however, is not a new phenomenon. Tigers and other big cats were kept by the Romans primarily for entertainment and often forced to fight other animals and humans. More recently, big cats were trained and kept for performing in circuses. Perhaps shockingly, despite years of protests, the last big cat act performing in circuses in the United Kingdom was only pulled in 2013, and it was not until 2019 that wild animal circuses were fully banned. In the United States, public opinion also appears to be changing. After the retirement of circus animals following the closing down of two of America’s biggest animal circuses, there has also been a push to ban travelling wild animal acts entirely, following suit from the UK and many other countries. However, the bill (Travelling Exotic Animal and Public Safety Act) has not yet passed fully. Circuses were (often, but of course not always) a breeding ground for poor animal welfare, with cramped and inadequate conditions for the animals, cruel training regimes and animal abuse. Many of the wild animals kept in private zoos and as pets experience the same sort of life. Yet, people continue to visit these menageries, either blissfully unaware or unwilling to care about what goes on behind the scenes. Many of these ‘private zoos’ offer a unique selling point: close encounters with wild animals. These often allow people to, for example, play with tiger cubs. Typically, these types of experiences can be relatively cheap, around $80 to $100, but, as in the Myrtle Beach private zoo featured in the documentary, these can be upwards of hundreds of dollars. Not only is this stressful for the young animals (which, drawing parallels to tiger photo opportunities at Asian tiger temples, older cubs may be sedated or declawed for), it also sets a dangerous precedent of people enjoying the interaction and then going away thinking that exotic animals would make a good pet. A 2011 study drew attention to this phenomenon: where wild animals are paraded in such fashion, or placed into more human situations, people care less about conservation and instead would rather keep the animal themselves. To make matters worse the Covid-19 pandemic is still raging, and this can lead to infection being passed from human to tiger, as has been documented in the Bronx Zoo, where close contact is likely minimal. One could imagine that where there are dozens of people playing with and having close contact with stressed cubs daily, there is a high likelihood of infections spreading through the captive tiger population and causing possible mortalities. Many roadside zoos do not have an on-site vet or do not even use veterinary services in order to cut costs. In many states, no laws are governing the buying and ownership of big cats and sometimes they may be easier to obtain than dogs. The prices for such animals can be shockingly quite affordable. Both tiger and lion cubs are often sold as pets in the US for under $5,000. These costs are just the tip of the iceberg. Veterinary personnel who have experience with tigers and lions are few and far between, and their expertise is not cheap. Bills can be in the tens of thousands of dollars each year. Adequate nutrition is also expensive, and for a tiger or lion, can be $2,500 a year or more. Even with the costs of maintaining these animals, cute cubs do not stay cute cubs for very long. So, then what? For those who purchase big cats as pets and are not prepared for when the cat reaches maturity, the reality is that the cat if lucky will be given to an accredited rescue establishment. If the cat is unlucky, it may either be dumped or given to someone who will exploit it further, usually via breeding for-profit and not always to a member of their own species. Ligers and tigons (hybrids of tigers and lions, with the father species making up the first half of the portmanteau) are often paraded as special attractions at roadside zoos but with having no real conservation benefit to either species, breeding them has been considered bad practice by accredited establishments for several years now. Of course, all of this is dependent on whether the cat ever reaches maturity. Many do not even make it two years as pets. Where cubs outgrow their usefulness as money-makers in private zoos, further exploitation tends to be their fate. They often will be returned to the mill to churn out more baby tigers, lions, tigons and ligers (and even third-generation mixes), and the cycle continues. Cub-petting events are not even limited to these private zoos either, as seen in the Tiger King documentary, cubs were taken on the road, to anywhere that would let their handlers make money off them. Unfortunately, the profits made from the cubs, either through selling or petting events fuels further breeding and thus exploitation and cruelty.
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