The Truth About Big Cats in Captivity- part 1
Jen recently had the opportunity to speak with Susan Bass, Director of Public Relations for Big Cat Rescue. Today’s blog post is based on some of what she learned. -Rumpy
.
Imagine you are one day old. Your eyes are not yet opened. You have been yanked from your mother and forced to live in a wire cage. You’re forced to drink milk that’s not of your species.
Then at 8 weeks of age (if your owner bothers to wait that long), you and other cubs are loaded up into trailers and hauled from town to town. At a time in your life when you should be sleeping much of the time, you are instead forced to be held by stranger after stranger.
You thought it would be cool to hold a tiger cub. But did you ever once think what it must be like for that cub?
You must pose for photos with these people. If you complain, someone blows in your face or jostles you around like a parcel.
After 12 weeks of age, you are no longer useful.
How can humans treat something so cute so cruelly?
Such is the life of many large cats that are bred by so-called sanctuaries in the US and around the world.
In the four weeks (and I say that loosely, because no one really enforces that law) you’re on the road, you bring in thousands of dollars for humans. But now that you’re too old to pet, it’s going to cost thousands of dollars to keep you.
So what happens to you?
Come back tomorrow and find out.
.
Note: Click on the photos to go to their source page.
March 14, 2013 at 5:03 AM
Why are we so wicked, why do we think we are superior , I doubt if a tiger were capable it would not put a human baby in a suitcase??
March 14, 2013 at 7:03 AM
No, only humans are so cruel.
March 14, 2013 at 3:03 PM
true!
March 15, 2013 at 7:00 AM
Sadly that is the truth
March 14, 2013 at 5:00 PM
well said, willowdot21
March 15, 2013 at 6:58 AM
I really can’t understand how evil we are as a breed (because that is all we are.) no other breed makes war, deliberately mistreats it’s young, imfirmed and old. Singularly we are usually really nice but put us into a pack so to speak and God we change I get so ashamed.
March 14, 2013 at 6:28 AM
I sometimes despair of the human race.
March 14, 2013 at 6:41 AM
Thank you for writing about this. It’s a travesty what we do to animals for our entertainment!
March 14, 2013 at 6:44 AM
We are totally against this practice!
March 14, 2013 at 7:02 AM
Saw a video yesterday on another blog about the girl who was killed by a lion at a so called sanctuary. I don’t understand people and how they can be so cruel.
March 14, 2013 at 7:20 AM
Nice teaser, and it is an interesting issue, as its only news to me that there are many wild animal ‘sanctuary’ in the US. I thought animal cruelty exist only in the developing countries.
March 14, 2013 at 7:39 AM
Wow!
Luckily my mother never took us to a zoo or place with animals in captivity, back then we never understood why, now we do, the woman was so right!
Poor kittens.
March 14, 2013 at 8:08 AM
and when a mauling death occurs everybody is always asking, “why?!” duh….animals like this don’t belong behind bars but unfortunately their wild environments are so few and far between they would be completely lost to us without captive breeding, sanctuaries and zoos.
March 14, 2013 at 8:56 AM
Come back tomorrow and find out about these sanctuaries and you may change your mind.
March 14, 2013 at 9:02 AM
So sad. It makes me want to cry. :’(
March 14, 2013 at 9:20 AM
Some humans are so arrogant to do what they want to do…..:(
March 14, 2013 at 9:29 AM
We have such a picture too, tsnapped in Kenia as my mom was 6 or 7 years old – today I could cry about the fate of this poor animals…
March 14, 2013 at 9:51 AM
Reblogged this on SERENDIPITY and commented:
I love the big cats and I hate the way they are treated. Sadly, breeding them in captivity may be the only way to keep them from disappearing from the eath, but these are not toys to be played with. They are living creatures who need to be treated appropriately and with love.
March 14, 2013 at 10:06 AM
There is an accredited breeding program that is maintaining species. These tigers are considered ‘generic,’ meaning they are inbred and have no genetic link to tigers of the wild. They are also not tracked by any governmental agency in the US, so we have no idea how many there actually are.
March 14, 2013 at 10:04 AM
I am not looking forward to tomorrows response
March 14, 2013 at 10:35 AM
Thank you for doing this important series. I look forward to the conclusion.
March 14, 2013 at 10:38 AM
WE know FURST PAW… What can happen…. REMEMBER a Year ago last October… when Zanesville OHIO… made the News beclaws Terry Thompson let DOZENS of exotic Animals loose and then shot himself…. THAT was just about 20 miles from our hill.
It was a SAD SAD and very SCARY time.
NOTHING good can come of TRYING to OWN a non domestic… Free Spirit. NOTHING..
March 14, 2013 at 11:04 AM
We know Ohio passed laws so people can no longer own big cats there. But did you know it’s perfectly legal here in Florida?
March 14, 2013 at 10:55 AM
Really interesting when you look at it through THEIR eyes! Even us Animal Lovers are “guilty”, maybe more guilty since we’re supposed to be very sensitive to our furry “kids”.. Great Post!!
March 14, 2013 at 11:35 AM
That is so sad. I recently visited a zoo (not really important where for they are mostly the same). It was my first experience and I am in the upper spectrum of senior citizen status
I was not impressed and really have NO desire to ever visit one again. It was very depressing and the animals have no choice. They are prisoners.
March 14, 2013 at 12:19 PM
We need another symbol. Like isn’t right for this, though I completely support the message.
March 14, 2013 at 12:33 PM
That’s sad. We’re almost afraid to come back tomorrow to find out what’s next.
March 14, 2013 at 1:22 PM
That is so sickening and I had no idea it was going on. Those poor animals.
March 14, 2013 at 1:46 PM
Sometimes I think there are people thick enough to believe that animals don’t have nerves, blood, brain cells, and emotions. Either that, or they don’t care, as long as they or, maybe, their own children are not put in a cage and carted off somewhere.
March 14, 2013 at 1:55 PM
My heart hurts for them and it makes my stomach go all in knots!
March 14, 2013 at 4:54 PM
This is very sad. I wonder why it can be so hard for people to appreciate things as they are meant to be instead of forcing them into what they want them to be?
March 14, 2013 at 6:50 PM
Sad. I’m afraid I won’t like Part 2. They shouldn’t be allowed to take the babies from their mothers.
March 14, 2013 at 6:55 PM
I agree – people are cruel. i just hope they slowly introduce them to the wild and let them loose.
March 14, 2013 at 7:21 PM
You’re not gonna like tomorrow’s post.
March 14, 2013 at 7:26 PM
I’m going to have to disagree. I’m familiar with most, if not all, of the sanctuaries in the United States. Not a single one that I know of breeds big cats. Rather, they are simply a sanctuary for orphans, injured, and some animals that cannot be returned to the wild, usually because the animals have become human imprinted.
I cannot speak for sanctuaries overseas but I believe those connected with entities such as the San Diego Zoo and others that work for worldwide conservation are on the up and up.
I do think it is cruel for some colleges, such as LSU off the top of my head, to parade a big cat around a noisy football stadium while in a cage that often is way too small for such an animal.
March 14, 2013 at 7:29 PM
By the way, to the best of my knowledge, even Big Cat Rescue — and I’ve been there several times when I worked in Tampa in the mid 1990s — does not breed big cats. They are a sanctuary.
March 15, 2013 at 12:24 AM
Bleh… I don’t think I want to find out…
March 15, 2013 at 11:46 AM
[...] via The Truth About Big Cats in Captivity- part 1 | Rumpydog. [...]
March 16, 2013 at 7:03 AM
[...] *http://www.tigersincrisis.com/ http://bigcatrescue.org/about/credentials/ http://rumpydog.com/2013/03/14/the-truth-about-big-cats-in-captivity-part-1/ [...]
March 16, 2013 at 7:21 AM
[...] reading about the plight of tiger cubs and adult tigers in captivity, you may be asking what you can do to help these magnificent [...]
March 16, 2013 at 7:35 AM
Cruel indeed. I wonder if it is the true sanctuaries that are doing this though.
March 16, 2013 at 7:36 AM
There are some places that ARE doing good work. A good rule of thumb is, if they’re asking you to pay to play with the animals, they are not keeping the well-being of the animals at heart.
March 16, 2013 at 8:43 AM
Agreed, I just worry about the naming convention.
March 16, 2013 at 9:12 AM
Perhaps you can blog about it.
March 17, 2013 at 7:14 AM
[...] like to ask you, if you haven’t already done so, to check out our three part series on the plight of tigers in captivity. While we focused on tigers in the US, similar things are [...]
March 18, 2013 at 10:21 AM
[...] The Truth About Big Cats in Captivity – Part 1 by Rumpy Dog | Very interesting. A [...]
April 3, 2013 at 4:01 AM
[...] why tiger cubs are exploited (read more about it here), like they were for a photo-op with the Detroit Tigers [...]