You wake up late in your Harlem apartment on the fifth floor, drag yourself to the sink and brush your teeth. As you’re headed toward the kitchen, you hear a growl. You look out the window and … there are two uniformed men hanging from ropes firing rifles through the next apartment window and huge orange paws reaching out for them. You are, at least, now fully awake.
This actually occurred in 20031. The sharpshooters were tranquillizing a full grown tiger. A man who kept a 400- to 500-pound Bengal tiger and a 3-foot alligator as roommates in his Harlem apartment was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment.
This is not an isolated incident. The United States has become the land of “exotic” pets. “Exotic” is terminology for a wide class of animals that find themselves not only in zoos, but also as pets and in roadside zoos, breeding kennels, and privately-run wildlife attractions. These include lions, tigers, leopards, pythons, hippopotamus’, bears, chimpanzees, chervils, as well as cross bred exotic animals with domesticated animals. Unhealthy and poorly built facilities, limited food supplies, poor pay for attendants, and limited veterinarian funds place the public, big cat handlers, and the animals themselves in harm’s way. We need an approach that protects our safety, our rights, and protection for the animals.
Tigers Are Man-eaters!!!!
Tigers are truly beautiful animals. The fierceness and spirit call to the wild part of the human heart. It is, however, easy to forget how dangerous these animals are to humans. Tigers see humans as a danger as well as a food source. According to official statistics in the Digital South Asian Library[2], 34,075 people were killed by tigers in British-administered India, 1875-1912. This means in turn-of-the-century India, tigers killed an average of three people in India every day.
One notorious man-eating tigress, known as the Champawat Tigress, killed some 200 men and women before being driven out of Nepal. She moved to another location, this time in India, and continued to kill, bringing her total up to 436 before she was tracked down and killed in 1911. She was known to enter villages, even during daylight, roaring and causing people to flee in panic to their huts.
The Sundarbans is a mangrove forest is an India national park where tigers are protected. Here they still kill 100-250 people per year. Most are killed when they venture into the Sundarbans to collect honey. The impact on the Indian families is so severe that an Irish relief organization, TigerWidows.org has been formed to support the widows of men dead from tigers and crocodiles.
Tiger Attacks in the US
We have had our share of big cat attacks in the US. Two tiger attacks at the San Francisco Zoo occurred on December 22, 2006 and December 25, 2007, both involving a 243-pound Siberian tiger named Tatiana (June 27, 2003 — December 25, 2007). In the first incident, a zookeeper was bitten on the arm during a public feeding. During the second incident, in which two people were injured and one killed, police officers fatally shot the tiger.[1] It was widely conjectured that the tiger responded to harassment by the people in a nearly empty zoo nearing closing time.
Two tiger maulings in Minnesota testify to the growing numbers of privately-owned wild cats in the U.S. On April 27, 2005[3]. A Minneapolis woman was seriously injured after being attacked by four tigers while cleaning their pen at a private property near Frontenac. On March 6, a teenager was swiped by a tiger at the Arcangel Wildlife farm near Underwood, and later developed a serious wound infection that required healthy skin grafts to heal. In 2001, a tiger at a roadside animal park in Racine was euthanized after biting a Rochester girl. In 2003, another tiger at the site, called Bearcat Hollow, was killed after biting a woman on the wrist.
Moving to Canada, a B.C. woman was accidentally killed on May 10, 2007 by her live-in fiancée’s caged tiger.
The professionals have their share of animal attacks and escapes. In 2003, one of the tigers in Siegfried & Roy's Las Vegas show bit Roy Horn in the neck, seriously injuring him. Dave Salmoni, a popular large predator expert, was attacked by a lion he was training.
Allowing Private Ownership
Business: Small Minnesota farmers, looking to develop new sources of revenue after losing business to giant agribusiness operations, sometimes turn to exhibiting exotic animals, or breeding them to sell as pets. Such business contributes to the health of rural Minnesota economies, the farmers-turned-zookeepers argue. However, tigers eat 20 pounds per day. Funds are required for building fences and cages. There are veterinary costs. These farmers are not likely to have sufficient large cat knowledge possibly leading to more escapes by the carnivores.
Additionally, the idea of raising a tiger as a pet is such a bad idea that it’s likely the business cannot succeed. “It’s more than a pet issue,” said Tammy Quist, director of the Wildcat Sanctuary. “It’s a public safety risk.” In recent months, the sanctuary has taken in wild cats from rural homes, amateur zoos, backyards and basements.”
The sanctuary gets 30 calls a month from Minnesota pet owners who bought a tiger cub but can’t handle a grown cat; from police who confiscate the cats; and from humane societies that pick up abused tigers and cougars. Filled to overcapacity, the Wildcat Sanctuary is raising money to build a larger facility to accommodate the growing number of wildcats in need of a home. I think the business also will generate very expensive lawsuits, both from the customers who are injured by the growing pets and from people injured by escaped animals.
Conservation: Private owners contend they help preserve the endangered species for future generations. More than 600 tigers and other wild cats were confiscated in the U.S. in 2004. Roughly half that number euthanized for rabies or after no suitable sanctuary could be found for them.
Virtually all privately-owned tigers in this country do not come from Asia, but rather are bred from parents here in the United States. Rampant cross-breeding of species and mating parent-child pairs has degraded the gene pool of the five purebred tiger species in the world, and resulted in the U.S. wildcat population becoming a “genetic cocktail” that is entirely unfit for ever returning to the wild.
Tigers born in the US have been interbred countless times, creating virtually a new, sixth breed of tiger in the world called “generic captive tiger” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But given the rate at which their range is being converted, it may be these could be the only breed of tigers to survive.
“Rewilding”: Closely associated with the conservation argument is the concept that animals born in captivity could be rewilded, - returning these tigers into the wild. Tara, a tiger man eater in the Indian Dudhwa National Park, was a British born hand raised tiger introduced into the wild. Tara, without skills and hunting technique, turned to humans for prey, butchering 24 before finally being killed herself.
“Living with Tigers” is a South Africa Bengal tiger rewilding project (with JohnVarty and Dave Salmoni.) where captive-bred tiger cubs were taught how to stalk, hunt, associate hunting with food and regain their predatory instincts. They were then released fend for themselves. The project claimed that two tigers were re-wilded and an additional two were undergoing re-wilding training. These claims were found to be false. The tigers were not purebred Bengal tigers. Only purebred tigers are allowed in re-wilding and cannot participate in the Species Survival Plan, a plan that aims to breed genetically pure tiger specimens. The Discovery Channel documentaries were found to be a fraud in 2004. The tigers are unable to hunt, and the film crew chased the prey up against a fence and into the path of the tigers just for the sake of dramatic footage. In addition, the tigers have not been released, and indeed still reside in a small enclosure under constant watch and with frequent human contact.[4]
Perhaps a successful approach will be found in the future, but for now any “rewilding” approach in the vicinity of humans seems doomed to failure.
Citizen rights: In the United States, we claim to be a free society. The private owners claim they should be allowed to own tigers in a free society. If we decide to not allow our citizens to have tigers, what will be the next freedom to fall? To what extent should government control its citizens? As citizens, we should demand our government not to control all aspects of our lives. We should be allowed to own (or be the guardian for) animals.
However, some exotics should not be imported. The brown tree snake, accidentally introduced to Guan, exterminated numerous native species. Pythons are replacing alligators as the top predator in the Everglades.
Banning Private Ownership
Inhumane Conditions: Many animals are found in roadside zoos and in private owner’s small cages. Many of these animals are simply slowly starving to death. Most of these animals are loved by their owners, but the owners lack the money, the facilities, or the training to properly take care of these big cats.
The Wild Animal Orphanage (WAO) is a private reserve that was closed down this year by the Texas State
Attorney General's Office Charitable Trust Division. Started by animal lovers to help protect animals recovered from bad situations, it was shut down because, among with other issues, an inventory listing 1,110 animals dead or missing. It had become the sort of problem the WAO was created to help.
Conservation: Purebred tigers are running out of habitat. Poachers are also killing these animals. It is likely that wild tigers will disappear in the near future. Private ownership is only providing conservation for the “generic cocktail” tiger. If the purebreds are to survive, the zoos are the best hope because they are not driven by emotional or a financial motives.
Public Safety: The zoos animal handlers have been trained for their job. Private owners usually do not. Tigers start out as mewing kittens, but within a year can kill with a single swipe and need 20 pounds a day of fresh meat to eat. It takes thousands of dollars a year to keep them.
All tiger handlers are at risk and many are, at some point, injured or killed by these very dangerous creatures. In every tiger attack on or animal escape from private owners, the owner felt they had a special relationship with their cats. This attitude leads to carelessness in feeding the animals and this becomes a tiger attack. It can lead to animals being improperly restrained in public appearances.
Fairness
The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) is a private organization committed to wildlife conservation, education, science and animal care. It provides standards for animal care, conservation and education. The AZA distinguishes AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums from "roadside zoos."
The members of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) are a network of more than 6,000 committed zoo and aquarium professionals, organizations and suppliers world-wide. All share a commitment to wildlife conservation, education, science and animal care.
I think the AZA should become a government entity expanded to “accredit” private ownership as well as zoos and aquariums. We should criminalize “Canned Hunts.” That such things even exist is shameful to our society.
1. CNN in October of 2003. Posted on December 28th, 2007 by mondoreb in All News, Breaking News, California News, Country News, New York News, Society and Culture, State News, Texas News, US News
3. “The Siberian Tigers of ... Minnesota?”, Doug McGill, The McGill Report, May 12, 2005.
4. “Bengal tiger”, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
