This is a cross-post. In the UAE - the Middle East if you want to generalise - animal abuse is not uncommon although we rarely hear about it in the West. Nearly all the stories about cat abuse come from America, not because Americans are animal abusers but because there is far more internet activity and reporting of animal abuse in America.
In Abu Dhabi, it seems that everyone is rich and with riches comes arrogance and ignorance. Add that mentality to a desire to own a flash car and a flash cat and you have neglected large wild cats because in Abu Dhabi flash cats means large exotic cats smuggled into the country.
A survey found that about 30 percent of the captive cheetahs and lions in Abu Dhabi within private zoos were malnourished because of a poor diet of chicken flesh without any supplements - bones and stomach contents and added supplements.
Plain chicken meat would make any cat ill over time including domestic cats. This diet led to neurological disorders so severe that some cheetahs and lions had to be euthanised. Chronic neglect.
Not all Arabs in the Middle East are ignorant on the subject of feeding big cats. Far from it. But too many are and it has been happening for a long time without any action being taken by the authorities to curb it.
There is also the obvious matter of the unacceptability of private zoos where big cats are kept for the amusement of the rich - not good. The whole thing stinks. From the point of view of conservation is is a disaster. But they don't even think about that. It does not cross their minds.
Click on the link at the heading of the page for more detail, if you wish. The picture shows a young cheetah in Abu Dhabi smuggled their from Namibia probably. Horrible.
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