Texas Tigers are Unwanted

During this dramatic credit crunch, I suspect that a substantial percentage of Texas tigers are unwanted. There are 4,000 tigers in Texas (there are about 3,000+ in the wild). Texas is the State (or country) with by far the highest population of tigers. There are 23 million people in Texas (2007). So the tiger to people percentage is by far the highest in the world. In Bangladesh there are about 150 million people with the tiger population in that country in the hundreds. Admittedly the Bengal tiger in Bangladesh is wild (just) and the 4,000 in Texas are captive but the difference is stark.

But what is to become of them? In a time of recession a tiger as a pet simply becomes a very costly luxury. According to Big Cat Rescue the cost of keeping a medium sized wild cat in captivity for 2 years is about $67,000. I recently read that two tigers and one lion have been rescued from, I presume, a private individual who was unable or unwilling to look after them from somewhere near Dallas. I have been to Dallas on more than one occasion. They have been given to a rescue center, In-Sync Exotic Wildlife Rescue and Education Center, in Wylie. They were in a bad condition, with ground down teeth and the lion had chewed tail. The tail chewing is something we see in domestic cats. It is a symptom of Feline Hyperesthesia. This can be caused by allergies and poor diet. The kind of thing a poorly kept tiger my suffer from.

As for the ground down teeth. This seems like a dietary issue as well. Perhaps underfeed and chewing on bone or some such food stuff. The big problem is this. The rescue center probably can't afford to keep these big cats either. Texas tigers are unwanted when the good times are over. This is so symptomatic of human nature. We buy and discard. Consume and dispose. It is all the same whether it is a sofa or a tiger.



Texas Tigers are Unwanted to Bengal tiger facts