Zoo worker locks another in a lion enclosure

A worker on a job training scheme was locked in a lion enclosure by a fellow worker. The two workers entered the enclosure at Belfast Zoo last week while the lions were in their den.

One worker believed to be the more experienced one left the enclosure and locked it. This left the other worker inside the enclosure in which lions were free to move around. We don't know for how long this precarious state of affairs existed but with great good fortune the worker who was locked in was unharmed. We don't know if it was accidental.

Belfast Zoo is owned by the city council. They said that they were aware of the incident and were investigating.

Belfast Zoo lions. Image: the zoo.

The worker who was trapped is believed to be part of a Northern Ireland training scheme for young people and unemployed people between the ages of 50 and 64 according to the Belfast Telegraph.

The source for the story said that they were shocked at the incident. They said that "They are very lucky they weren't killed or severely mauled and left with horrendous injuries. It's just another thing that raises serious questions for Belfast Zoo. I can only imagine what was going through this poor person's mind. I mean how on earth did this happen?"

Interestingly, the zoo claims that their lions are Barbary lions, a subspecies that was made extinct many years ago in the wild and which lived along the North African coast adjacent to the Mediterranean. Comment: I would doubt whether they are purebred Barbary lions. I make this assessment on the basis that many tigers are not the subspecies as claimed by the zoo where they live. There are often generic tigers and I suspect that these lions are generic i.e. hybrid or crossbred lions. But I am speculating so it's an allegation that I make rather than a firm statement.

There is one male and two females living at Belfast Zoo.

They are a large subspecies measuring about a metre in height at the shoulder and up to 3.5 m in length. Their average weight is up to 230 kg.

A spokesperson for the city council said: "[The] council is aware of an incident at the lion enclosure at Belfast Zoo earlier this month. We take the safety of all our staff, visitors and animals very seriously, and an investigation is underway into the circumstances of this incident. We cannot comment further while this is ongoing."

The incident was reported to the Health and Safety Executive of Northern Ireland.

A spokesperson for this organisation said that they could not comment on individual companies or organisations. There are calls for the zoo to look again at its policies and procedures.

Robbie Butler, vice chairman of Stormont's all party-group one animal welfare said that, "Whilst the primary concern must be with the individual involved, it also raises concerns about animal welfare."

The zoo didn't want to comment about the incident. Allegedly there have been three breaches against three different species at Belfast zoo under the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria animal welfare standards.

-----------

P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Zoos make people likelier to behave sustainably?

Researchers at the University of Sheffield and Chester Zoo found that visits to 38 zoos and aquariums around the world made people more likely to behave more sustainably. The kind of behaviour they hope might happen is that people check products for the inclusion of palm oil. Many products are made with the assistance of palm oil as an ingredient. It is found in everything from biscuits to shampoo.

But palm oil production is unsustainable. It is linked to the destruction of orangutan habitat. And this is where zoos can change things ostensibly. It is Sir David Attenborough who once said:

"No one will protect what they don't care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced."

In other words, it is about education. And zoos can be educational. It depends on the quality of the zoo, however. There are some horrendous zoos in developing countries which are simply torture chambers for the animals contained therein. They serve no educational purpose other than to decide that zoos are horrendous places and should be closed.

That isn't the case with many zoos in developed countries and the Sheffield and Chester research team found that interventions had "positive impacts on outcomes in zoo visitors."

The question, though, is whether anything learned at zoos can be translated into behavioural traits in the people who learnt the lessons. So, for instance, there was a "medium effect on knowledge and intentions, a small to medium one on attitudes and a small effect on behaviour" in respect of the impact on the behavioural patterns of people who had gone to a zoo.

I take from that to mean that people left zoos feeling more inspired to have a more sustainable lifestyle and one which is more conducive to conservation but this feeling dissipated and their attitudes dissipated somewhat and so the effect on their behaviour in making tangible changes to the environment was small or perhaps on occasions minimal.

The lesson, there, is that it takes more than pure education the change attitudes. It takes commitment and zoos alone are unlikely to change attitudes sufficiently to boost sustainability and protect nature as far as I am concerned.

Infographic on making zoos better places for big cats

Xavier McNally of the University of Sheffield one of the authors of the study published in the journal Conservation Biology said: 

"Millions of people visit zoos and aquariums globally, and this creates an opportunity to shape people's beliefs about conservation and empower them to help protect the environment by making small changes in their lives."

The University said that the findings showed how zoos and aquariums can help almost 200 countries meet the nature goals they signed up to in 2022. There is a desire to make 30% of the world's oceans and land a protected area by 2030.

Comment: these are laudable objectives but, for me, I don't think that zoos no matter how well-run they are can substantially change attitudes in terms of sustainability and wildlife conservation. My first impression when I see a really good zoo is that the animals should be free, in the wild, living natural lives. I see zoos as places where there are anti-conservation attitudes although zoos defend themselves by saying that their research fosters and encourages and improves conservation.

But there are many negatives which are often undiscussed such as where do zoos get their wild animals from? Do they get them from other zoos? Do they get them through a breeding programme? Or do they get them from the wild; stealing young animals from their mothers? That kind of illegal activity might occur in countries where wildlife protection and animal protection laws are not enforced properly or don't even exist. And that's kind of illegal activity is very anti-conservation.

RELATED: Captive Pallas’s cats die of toxoplasmosis

And I know a bit about the small wild cat species at zoos. Some small wild cat species simply cannot sustain themselves in zoos because the conditions are simply not conducive to their lifestyle (see link above). Some small wild cat species develop diseases quite quickly and die quite quickly. 

Their lifespans are severely curtailed. And these are in good zoos. Think about the bad ones where the environment inside is barren and hopeless. Many zoos are simply cruel places indicative of humankind's very poor attitude towards animals in many parts of the world. I cannot be optimistic about zoos despite the fact that some good goes on in them concerning conservation.

-----------

P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Putting domestic cats into a monkey enclosure to kill the rats backfires

Kunming Zoo is located in the Yunnan Province of China. In that zoo they have a monkey enclosure. And in the monkey enclosure there were rats which migrated to the enclosure after a food storage issue.

Because hundreds of rats got into the enclosure, the zookeepers decided to introduce domestic cats into the enclosure to get rid of the rats. In all 10 cats ended up in the enclosure.

Woman tries to jump into monkey enclose to save the cats placed in it to clear the rats but the monkey's molested the cats. Image by MikeB based on images from AsiaWire

A problem developed in that the monkeys started to abuse the cats with apparently some mounting the cats for sex and others pulling out whiskers.

A visitor to the zoo became distressed at what she saw and decided to jump into the enclosure to save the cats from abuse.

There is a picture on the Internet of a woman being grabbed as she tries to jump into the enclosure.

The upshot is that the cats were removed from the enclosure. The woman is okay and the cats are been removed except for 2 to deal with any remaining rodents.

Apparently there are no issues concerning cats and monkeys. They get on well we are told at the moment.

The zoo management "expressed their thanks to the public for their worries about the animal's welfare and emphasised their commitment to looking back on the things they did wrong and will consider public opinions." The quote comes from the Daily Star.

It appears that the remaining two cats will be rehoused in safer places by the China Small Animal Protection Association.

That's the story. The headline is rather more dramatic and it states, "Woman jumps in monkey enclosure to save cats being molested and mounted by animals".

---------

P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Video shows how lions escaped Taronga Zoo, in Sydney, Australia

The security camera video shows how a family of lions escaped from an Australian zoo. It wasn't particularly amazing as they just crawled (walked) through what appears to be a fence with a hole in it! The interesting thing is that they all came back of their own volition bar one who was tranquillized and brought back. It seems that they are all conditioned to feel safe in the zoo and returned to experience that safety.

The lions involved were lion cubs Luzuko, Zuri, Khari and Malika and adult male Ato.
    

As you can see this is a BBC video taken from the security camera footage. The video is 'embedded' in this website using code. If the BBC deletes the video on their website, it will disappear here. Just so you know. I can't control what the BBC do.

Video shows how lions escaped Taronga Zoo, in Sydney, Australia. Screenshot.

The video was released by the zoo which surprises me a bit because it shows us that the zoo management were allegedly negligent in allowing a hole to develop in the wire mesh fence. How did it develop? Weird. Perhaps it was faulty manufacturing and the lions gradually, over time, enlarged the hole.

Young Pallas's cats often die of toxoplasmosis

Pallas's cat is a popular zoo species. They are endangered in Central Asia but they are fairly numerous in zoos where they are bred. They've encountered breeding success but the kittens frequently die from acute toxoplasmosis, an infection of the Toxoplasma gondii protozoan.

Bunch of Pallas's cat kittens. Photo: Reddit.com.

A study entitled: 'Toxoplasmosis in Pallas' cats (Otocolobus manul) raised in captivity', reported that a breeding pair of Pallas's cats in Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria produced 24 kittens between 1998 and 2002. Sadly 58% of the kittens died mostly of acute toxoplasmosis between the second and fourteenth week of their lives. The study was published online by Cambridge University Press on 21 October 2004. This problem has been known for a long time.

RELATED: Pallas’s cats at zoos infected with Toxoplasma gondii. This page discusses this topic in more detail.

They decided to develop a strategy to protect the cats from fatal toxoplasmosis. The shed T. gondii oocysts of one 12-week-old Pallas's kitten were bioassayed in mice. This means measuring the concentration of oocysts. Toxoplasma gondii was isolated in tissue culture inoculated (vaccinated) with tissues of the mice.

The researchers stated that the surviving kittens (presumable those that had not died of toxoplasmosis but were infected with the disease) were treated with clindamycin for 16 weeks. Clindamycin is an antibiotic. It fights bacteria in the body. Toxoplasmosis is a single celled protozoan parasite. But the antibiotic 'seroconverted' the infection. This means that the presence of the disease in the blood was eliminated i.e., a conversion from seropositive to seronegative.

"Clindamycin is indicated for Toxoplasma and Neospora infections although in human medicine sulfadiazine and pyrimethamine remain the drugs of choice for toxoplasmosis. Clindamycin is one of several suitable drugs for treating chronic rhinosinusitis in cats." - Science Direct.

Comment: there is a dramatically sad and uncomfortable backstory to the cute Pallas's cats that zoo visitors see. Are we okay with the fact that so many kittens die of toxoplasmosis and is the infection being controlled in 2022?

Private zoo owners should experience jail for three years to find out what it's like to be in cages

NEWS AND COMMENT: Private zoo owners are ignorant. They are uneducated and they are stupid at least in respect of one topic: animal welfare. They don't know what it's like to be banged up in a cage. They think it's all right. They think that if a tiger is born in a cage it accepts the cage (wrong, the need for much space is in their DNA). Another indicator of ignorance. They should go to jail for a couple years or more and feel what it's like. This is exactly what has happened to the notorious Joe Exotic. 

Joe Exotic in prison. Image in public domain.

He's been in jail for almost 3 years. I guess you know why. He was the star of the Netflix documentary which went viral. I guess the world and their dog know about Joe Exotic - real name: Joseph Maldonado-Passage. He is revelling in his celebrity status. Netflix should be ashamed of providing him with the platform to gain celebrity status.

In the follow-up series by Netflix he apparently expressed some sympathy towards the big cats that he kept locked up in his infamous zoo. At one time it was America's largest private zoo. He saw nothing wrong with it at all. He saw nothing wrong in exploiting big cat cubs for photo sessions after tearing them away from their mothers. He saw nothing wrong in killing adult tigers who became redundant for the purposes that he required them i.e. to make money.

RELATED: Joe Exotic gives his zoo to Carole Baskin

At the end of the first episode, I am told that Joe Exotic expressed some regret for what he's done. Being in prison has given him a different perspective on his treatment of the animals at his former zoo over the many years he kept it running. He admits that he now finally understands why it is wrong to keep big cats locked in cages because he knows what it feels like. In his words:

"After being lumped up her three years, I know now how my animals felt. I'm ashamed of myself. I hope I'll get a second chance just like my tigers."

And hearing that annoys me and many others. It's taken him all these years to realise that he has caused distress and pain in these magnificent creatures. And he did it all for financial gain and celebrity. Frankly it sucks and this is the exact sentiment of many other people as indicated by their tweets on Twitter.

it fucking sucks that joe exotic didnt realize how fucked caging animals were until he experienced being locked up in jail, himself. honestly, it made me emotional when he said that.

— SortofUnpleasant🎮🎃(they/them) (@UnpleasantDotTV) November 18, 2021

RELATED: Joe Exotic was terrified of big cats and wickedly cruel says film producer

And yeah, in an act of added irony, one of his old mates in the private zoo business, Jeff Lowe, expresses sympathy towards Joe Exotic for his uncomfortable experience of being in prison. He said that it is a long time to be locked up in prison (2.5 years) but he was perfectly happy to lock up animals in his zoo for many, many years and of course the same applies to Joe exotic. I'm afraid that this is another example of ignorance. It is an example of an unenlightened and abusive approach to animals.

Calls for zoo animals to be Covid vaccinated as 9 big cats at one zoo get the disease

NEWS AND VIEWS - WASHINGTON ZOO: The time has come to vaccinate zoo animals against Covid both in the interests of their health and welfare and of humans visiting these zoos and the employees. Nine big cats, lions and tigers, contracting the disease is the largest outbreak that I have heard about at a zoo.

Covid outbreak at Washington Zoo affecting 9 big cats. Photos: Pixabay. These are not the cats in the story.

The zoo administration doesn't know how they got the disease. Their workers all wear masks apparently. In the past zoo animals have caught Covid from zoo workers. Who else? No one is near enough to them to transmit this zoonotic disease.

The cats are being treated with anti-inflammatories, anti-nausea meds and antibiotics (possible secondary bacterial infection in the lungs). The patients comprise: Six African lions, one Sumatran tiger, and two Amur tigers. Their symptoms are: decreased appetite, coughing, sneezing and lethargy.

It is believed that they are not a risk to customers. The USDA has approved the inoculation of zoo animals to Covid. The first jabs will be administered to certain zoo animals at the Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Virginia when they become accessible in the following months. Other zoos have started to vaccinate their animals.

It is time as the problem appears to be getting worse. Russia has or is developing a Covid vaccine for animals. I wonder if this story will prompt the vaccination of domestic cats and dogs? It has been on the cards for a while. It is thought that animals might become a reservoir for the disease and maintain it when it has been substantially diminished among humans.

All Scottish wildcats and kittens should be DNA tested for purebred status

NEWS AND OPINION: There is a nice story about Scottish wildcats today reported by the Daily Record. It concerns three Scottish wildcat kittens at the Five Sisters Zoo in West Calder, near Livingston. On their first medical they discovered that they have two boys and one girl. They look very much like Scottish wildcats with their tabby coats and slightly fierce appearance which is exactly the way you want it. The photograph on this page is from the Daily Record. There next job is to name them and they are looking for suggestions on their Facebook page.

Scottish wildcat kitten at his first medical. Photo: Five Sisters Zoo, via the Daily Record.

The report states that there are an estimated 35 Scottish wildcat in the wild in Scotland and that they are 50 times rarer than a giant panda. They may actually be rarer than that. In fact, they may no longer exist in purebred form. There's been so much interbreeding between domestic and feral cats and Scottish wildcats that it is plausible to argue that there are no purebred Scottish wildcats left in captivity or in the wild.

I don't know if any wildcats in zoos are purebred, such as these three darling kittens. I think that zoos should confirm to the public that they are genuine Scottish wildcats with no dilution of their DNA through crossbreeding with non-purebred Scottish wildcats.

Where a wild cat becomes extinct or is becoming extinct through interbreeding with other species of cat, it is beholden upon zookeepers who are in the business of conservation, they state, to make sure that they are caring for the genuine item and not a hybrid. For all I know these beautiful kittens may be hybrids and if they are you can't call them Scottish wildcats. One issue is that the appearance of a Scottish wildcat hybrid is very similar to the genuine article.

CLICK FOR PAGES ON THE EUROPEAN WILDCAT

I don't want to be too negative because it's a nice story but I've seen quite a lot of estimates as to the number of Scottish wildcats left in the wild over the years and they are just that: estimates. This leads me to believe that there may be none left which is a stark realisation.

Although people refer to this species of wild cat as a "Scottish wildcat" it is possibly or probably fairer to call this cat a European wildcat. I don't know whether it is true that there is a subspecies of wildcat called the Scottish wildcat. 

Also, please note that I use the word "wildcat" and the phrase "wild cat" for a specific reason. The phrase "wild cat" refers to any individual cat of any wild cat species whereas the word "wildcat" in my opinion refers to the species which is the 'wildcat'. It is complicated but I'm being particular about this.

Psychic lion predicts Euro 2020 match results

NEWS AND VIEWS: This is a bit of promotional fun, as I would describe it. They have described Boy an eight-year-old lion living in a Thai zoo as albino but to the best of my knowledge he isn't a true albino. It just adds a little bit of mystery to the whole story. 

 Psychic lion predicts Euro 2020 match results. Credit: see image.

Zookeepers Khon Kaen zoo, keep the big cats at their zoo stimulated by hanging pieces of meat from a wire above them which are hard to get to. That's a good idea I guess because it challenges them slightly. Because of the Euro 2020 football currently running they decided to attach the flags of countries to each piece of meat. If the lion grabs a piece of meat labelled England, then England is going to win their next match which is exactly what happened!

Boy correctly predicted the outcome of the England vs Croatia match. He also predicted France to beat Germany which was correct, and Portugal to beat Hungary which was also correct. Those who want to know, Boy has not as yet predicted the winner of the tournament. In 2010 an octopus, Paul, predicted the winner of the World Cup that year as Spain, which as I recall was correct.

I almost forgot; Boy also predicted successfully the outcome of the Netherlands vs Ukraine match. Boy lives at the Khon Kaen zoo in the northeast of the country. The lion has been described as psychic by zookeepers! 

A statistician would be able to work out the chance of success by pure chance and they're probably quite high. Zookeepers are keen to tell people that they are not encouraging gambling! It is a neat idea, though, to promote the zoo. All they want to do is to "enrich animal's behaviours. The activity had no hidden purpose of encouraging people to gamble. This was purely for entertainment purposes only".  A slightly nervous statement. 

They are concerned that they'll be criticised in their country for encouraging gambling. This is significant as gambling, other than betting on horse races or the government-sponsored Thai lottery, is prohibited in Thailand. There you go. You can see the issue.

Can someone tell me why the Euro 2020 competition is being played in the middle of 2021! :) No idea. Just remembered: it was cancelled in 2020 because of Covid.

Is India creating a reservoir for Covid-19 in its animal population?

It has been mooted before that there is a potential for a reservoir of the Covid-19 virus to be built up within the animal population both domestic and wild and this issue needs to be addressed. It comes to mind particularly because I was a little shocked but perhaps unsurprised to read that 35 zookeepers at Hyderabad's Nehru Zoological Park have tested positive for the virus. As a consequence eight of the zoo's Asiatic lions contracted the disease. It is believed, and it's entirely plausible, that the lions contracted the disease from zookeepers, surrounded as they were by a large number of infected humans.

Asiatic lion that caught Covid-19 from one of 35 zookeepers who tested positive for Covid-19. Photo: Jam Press.

The experts still say that there is no evidence that lions and other animals can transmit the disease back to humans but it seems entirely possible and indeed likely that they do because as this disease can travel between human and animal, it can move between animal and human. After all that's exactly how humans got it in the first place i.e. from a wet market in Wuhan ostensibly from a pangolin which got the disease from a bat but because China has been so secretive about it we don't know for sure.

The idea of animals, regrettably, forming a reservoir for the disease is brought into focus by this story from Hyderabad, India. India is suffering an enormous surge in infections at over 400,000 per day at the date of this post. They are grossly underestimating, or misrepresenting for political reasons, the deaths which everybody realises. The pictures of funeral pyres in car parks tells the true story. The death rate is probably 10 times higher than the official figures whoch are at around 3,500 dead. This would make the true figure near 35k.

Indeed, the BBC reported on 13 funeral pyres outside, I believe. Modi's residence and the government declared that there were just seven so a blatant misrepresentation has been perpetrated but the news is obviously distorted.

The point though is that when there are such vast numbers of infections, and the infection level is probably much higher than the high level stated, it seems highly likely that animals are being infected at a similar rate but nobody knows what is going on because India is overrun by this virus.

The Indian government does not want to put the country back into lockdown because around 80% of the 400 million Indian workforce are casual labourers being paid by the day. If they don't work they don't earn anything and they can starve to death. In the last lockdown they all went back to their homes so Modi and his government can't lock the country down to try and curb the virus.

Despite being the global centre of vaccination production, India is running out of vaccination and their rate of vaccination is incredibly low because of catastrophic logistics. It just seems to be a complete disaster, top to bottom, and there is going to be a long, long journey back to normality if and when it happens.

Male jaguar kills female jaguar when put together at a Florida zoo. Why?

Harry and Zenta were two jaguars at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens. Harry is still alive and he is twelve years old. He killed the female jaguar, Zenta, who was twenty-one years old. A mistake was made. They were both put into a holding complex. 

Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens poster featuring a jaguar. Is this Harry? Photo: Jacksonville
and Gardens.

Harry was put there for examination. The mistake was putting them together. Keepers tried to separate them unsuccessfully. As Harry attacked Zenta, they tried to immobilise him. I presume this means tranquilizing. They were unsuccessful and he killed the female who had arrived at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in 2006 they rescued animal from a private zoo. Harry was born at the zoo in 2009.

Comment: the question that I have is ,why did the male jaguar kill the female? In the wild male and female jaguar's meet to mate and reproduce. Roaring may function to bring them together for mating purposes. Females can end up being accompanied by several males. But I can't find any reports of male jaguar's killing female jaguars.

I will have to come to my own conclusion as the zookeepers at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens don't tell us why Harry wanted to kill Zenta. There were probably two overlapping factors. Both were captive, living in confined spaces much smaller than the amount of space they naturally require in the wild which would be something in the order of up to 152 km² for a male jaguar. Females require less space but still vastly larger than is available at a zoo. This probably constantly stressed both the male and female. 

In the wild, female home ranges can be within the home ranges of male jaguars which sometimes overlap. I would suspect that stresses built up because the natural social organisation of these big cats was completely disturbed by their captivity. 

The male wanted to get rid of the female because she was on his territory and competing for that territory. This is my assessment. I may be completely wrong but it is the only possible assessment, I believe. This was about territory and ownership of it. It didn't matter whether they were male and female or male and male.

Tiger loose in Knox County, East Tennessee, USA

Photo: Knox County Sheriff's Office. My thanks to the Daily Mail

A tiger is on the loose in Knox County, East Tennessee, USA. They have no idea where it came from. A local zoo has confirmed that their inventory is complete and that none of their Malayan tigers have escaped the facility. The tiger concerned was seen at the Forks of the River Industrial Park on Wednesday night by a police officer, as I understand it.

Location of tiger on the loose:

Since that first sighting there have been multiple reports of sightings of the tiger overnight around John Sevier Highway followed by another sighting at 7 a.m. on Thursday morning near Thornegrove Pike.

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency is leading the search for the big cat. That was the state of play on Thursday this week. They've set a trap using chickens as bait in an area where the cat was last seen.

Once they have caught the it they will take it to Tiger Haven a rescue centre for big cats in Kingston, Tennessee.

Comment: it appears that this is not a tiger that has escaped from a bona fide "proper" local zoo and therefore readers have to conclude that it has escaped from a private "zoo". They can be very small. The zoo maybe someone's backyard. There may be just two animals. and the tiger may be "domesticated" and someone's pet! There are many thousands of private zoos in America and there are more tigers in America than there are in the entirety of the rest of the world in the wild. 

For me it is slightly amusing although I don't wish to offend anybody. This is because in the UK there are frequent big cat sightings and it is somewhat of a joke because there are no big cats in the UK. There are no private zoos of the type you get in America and I don't think we've had a tiger escaping any zoo for many many decades. If ever. So if somebody sees a big cat in East Tennessee in a field and they photograph it, we can be sure it is real and it will be great to be able to say that. So many big cat sightings are just fictions, the result of fear and sometimes bad news days for the media.

Evil Argentinian zoo drugs animals so tourists can pet them

Network for Animals tells us the story of an evil zoo in Argentina, Lujan Zoo, where they drug animals so that tourists can pet them and pose for photographs with them. It is cruel and heartless but no one cares. It is good business. The tigers are drugged. They are unable to stand. A lion was so drugged that he was unable to fed when provided with food. He had glazed eyes and a drooling mouth. He was in a deep stupor.

We know that zoos are bad enough but to do this is unconscionable and utterly unacceptable. The lions and tigers are drugged daily. The tourists are ignorant of what is going on. Or perhaps they realise but don't care. They grin into their cell phones posing while taking selfies.

As mentioned, it is illegal in the jurisdiction concerned, the city of Lujan, but the authorities don't enforce the law. A failure to enforce laws is as good as having no laws. Wikipedia says that Luján is a city in the Buenos Aires province of Argentina, located 68 kilometres north west of the city of Buenos Aires.

Donate

Domestic Cat Supports Wild Cat in Prison (zoo enclosure) - Feline Solidarity!

I love this. The stray calico cat wandered into the lynx enclosure at St. Petersburg Zoo and made buddies instantly. Then they engaged in mutual grooming. It is like the domestic cat wanted to support his wild cat friend because he is in prison. I wish the domestic cat could have got him out. Why can't he take the lynx back the way he came in?!

This is probably a Eurasian lynx.

USDA Too Slow to Shut Down Dodgy Zoos

Great Cats of Indiana has been closed. Hurrah! It took about ten years to do it. In the meantime the great cats inside were turned into cats that weren't so great; just depressed, underweight tigers and lions with medical problems, and in poor health and condition.

I have written about the dodgy private zoos of America before. There have been some high profile cases, which have resulted in deaths.

Lion at Great Cats of Indiana - I don't the name of the photographer, sorry.

Apparently the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had filed a complaint about Great Cats of Indiana in 2007 and there have been breaches of regulations going back to 2002. A court application was filed by the USDA, as I understand it, in 2007 but the place was still open until now.

Earlier inspections revealed negligent medical treatment of a cougar, leopard and lion. For example, the cougar had half a tail and a bloody open would where it had been severed.

I am informed that the USDA often make cursory inspections of private zoos that are poorly managed to avoid having to report animal abuse as it reflects badly on the them. Also it takes at least 6 years normally for cases to be heard at court (src: Big Cat Rescue).

Then recently the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Law Enforcement received a complaint about the Great Cats of Indiana. They investigated on May 23rd. Corporal Todd Pekny went around to the place and saw emaciated animals in very poor conditions, which demonstrated neglect by the director of the place Rob Craig.

On May 29th they removed seven cats from the facility and they are now at a undisclosed USDA facility.

There it is. Neglect by a private zoo keeper and a government department that might also be accused of neglect. The losers? Of course it has to be cats.

Another Private Zoo Disaster Waiting to Happen?

May 2012: I wrote about Joe Exotic's private zoo a while ago (see article). I think he has the largest collection of big cats in America. His real name is Joe Schreibvogel. Mr Exotic is your archetypical American big cat obsessive. I am sure at the beginning he had no intention of ending up with nearly 170 big cats and up to 800 (yes 800) other animals in an area that would normally be quite large at 54 acres but must be considered pitifully cramped when you take into consideration the demands for territory of the large wild cat species and other animals. It just gradually happened in the same way a cat hoarder ends up with hundreds of domestic cats.

Having changed his name to "Exotic" it would appear he is also obsessed with the exotic. In my humble opinion what he has created is very far indeed from anything that is remotely exotic. It is sad, unhealthy and dangerous.

Mr Schreibvogel came to my attention in a television documentary program. He was visited by and interviewed by Louis Theroux an English broadcaster who asks telling questions is a very dry and apparently innocent manner. He is able to elicit honest answers to difficult questions. Even though the television program was about seven months ago (Oct 2011) it is still clear in my memory. It clearly had an impact. It was bound to because Mr Schreibvogel's edifice to self-indulgence is so odd.

During interviewing three episodes come to mind. When challenged by Louis about keeping a tiger is a small cage for a long time, Mr Schreibvogel said that what the tiger does not know he won't miss (i.e. the young tiger had never experienced a natural environment). Incidentally, in the wild tigers commonly travel 15-20 kilometers per day and 16-32 kms per night. Let's say they like space, up to 300 square kilometers of it, rather than a 15 foot square cage. I disagree with Mr Exotic because I believe that the desire for a large territory is hard wired into the big cat and inherited. The point is that Mr Schreibvogel simply finds a way to justify what he does whether it is considered cruel or not. Mr Schreibvogel likes his freedom under the famous American constitution but he refuses to give it to a tiger and in doing so he disrespects the tiger. He says that the tiger will be extinct in the wild in 15 years or so. He should know because what he does contributes to that process.

Mr Schreibvogel likes to breed big cat hybrids. He seems to do this without any concern for best breeding practice and inbreeding or preserving genetic purity. As far as I am aware he breeds generic tigers and sells them for profit. Generic tigers are hybrids. There are no conservation benefits to this process. It is just manufacturing tigers for the American commercial marketplace. Does that sound good or acceptable to you?

Mr Schreibvogel also made it clear that under certain unspecified circumstances he would be prepared to kill all the animals under his control. I presume that he meant that if things went wrong he would kill them and perhaps himself. I got the distinct impression that he meant that. He still grieves for this brother who is buried on his land. That is sad but I feel it still affects him emotionally. Is it a contributing factor that makes him unsuitable to keep such a large private zoo?

That is why I have the title: Another Private Zoo Disaster Waiting to Happen? I am  referring to the horrors of October 2011 at the private zoo near Zanesville, Ohio owned by Terry Thompson. As you might recall, he committed suicide and released all his animals. The police shot 48 of them. They said they had to. Everything about these large private zoos are bad for the animals. They live in cages, and then in this case get shot at the end of that misery.  I don't think that the Terry Thompson incident is a freak one-off event because the circumstances under which the events unfolded remain in place. It could happen again and Mr Schreibvogel could the next person to be in the news.

He is certainly under pressure from the authorities and he must always be under financial pressure. Perhaps the unspecified circumstances under which he kills his animals are gradually arriving. Who knows? A recent CBS news story refers to allegations of animal abuse at his private zoo.  Mr Exotic likes to exercise his constitutional rights. If it is legal he has the right to do it, he declares. Yes, agreed. However, the law is frequently an ass and outmoded. Times change. The law follows. The time of the private big cat zoo is over.

All the world's attention should be on how to save the tiger in the wild and to stop pretending it can be done in captivity. If Mr Exotic did something like that he'd get my respect.

Note: If I was the authority dealing with Mr Exotic and wanted to close him down I'd ensure that the animals were protected before taking action.

Are tigers in South America?

There are no tigers, in the wild, in South America. The largest wildcat in South America is the jaguar. The jaguar is a large cat and the third largest wildcat after the tiger and the lion.

You will be able to see tigers in zoos etc. in South America. The only tigers in South America are captive tigers. There are many zoos in South America. There are probably tigers at the Municipal Zoological Park Quinzinho de Barros in the municipality of Sorocaba. This is a major Brazilian zoo.