Generic tiger cubs sell for about $500 to $1000 (USD) in the United States (1). Generic tigers are non-purebred or a hybrid subspecies of tiger.
Purebred domestic kittens of any breed sell for similar amounts. Does this strike you as odd? It can only mean that there is low demand for tigers in the USA and/or there are lots of tigers and not that many buyers.
The reason is probably that individuals who keep tigers as pets decide to breed them and that leads to oversupply. It also probably means that the tigers are more valuable dead for their body parts for Asian medicine. This may encourage the unnecessary killing of tigers in captivity. A major factor in the economics of buying and selling tigers is the cost of maintenance - very high. Do individuals who keep generic tigers have a route into the Asian medicine market? I don't know but I would expect that they do.
The fact that tiger cubs are the same price as purebred kittens is also a measure of the value that we put on the tiger. It is an extremely rare animal. There are about 3,000 in the wild on the planet. So why isn't it worth more?
We genuinely don't care enough about the tiger. For that reason it will become extinct in the wild in due course.
Associated page: Tigers for Sale.
Note: (1) http://www.tigerhaven.org/
Monday, 31 October 2011
Sunday, 30 October 2011
America's Dangerous Pets
Joe Exotic has his private tiger zoo in America. There are 176 tigers. It is one of the largest collections of big cats in the world. There are also ligers (cross between tiger and lion) and hundreds of other animals; 1,400 in all. This is G.W. Exotic Animal Memorial Foundation in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. The business is named after his brother who was tragically killed by a drunk driver.
Joe seems a decent person but looks a bit like a camp cop with long blond hair and eyeliner (he was a cop once). And he had common sense (of a kind) but it all seemed so desperately wrong to me. He was being interviewed by Louis Theroux for the BBC. Louis also met up with Tim who has a lot of large wild animals including bears and tigers. Tim doesn't trust or respect any person including his wife and he said just that on TV with his wife standing beside him. She pays all the bills for his hobby! He keeps all these dangerous pets in small, muddy cages or enclosures.
Louis constantly questioned them about the morality of keeping animals in small cages that have naturally large territories. Tim had a good answer. He said that the bear has a large range because it has to travel large distances to find prey. Given a chance, the bear would eat human food given to it. Therefore the bear is happy living in a quarter acre enclosure. That theory applies to all wild animals, he implied. Is he correct? Joe had a similar justification. He said that tigers raised in cages knew nothing else. If they never had a large territory they would not miss it. Was he correct?
Tim boxed with a lynx. The lynx is a medium sized wildcat. I am not sure if the cat was declawed. I suspect it was. This was not proper treatment in my view.
Joe was going through difficult times financially. I am not surprised. It must cost a fortune to feed and maintain 1,400 animals. Animal rights activists in the area were causing a reduction in visitors to a road show of tigers and bears he presented in car parks. This caused a loss of revenue. He might have to close his business.
Joe said that if he went broke he would prefer to euthanize all his animals rather than relocate them. This sounds horrible and quite sick. By the way, this would not be euthanasia but plain killing. Was Joe thinking about cashing in? Dead tigers are very valuable in the Asian medicine market. I am thinking of tiger bone (for wine) and tiger penis (value $6,000) etc. Joe is sitting on a fortune in tiger penises alone (1 million bucks).
Despite his financial worries he still breeds tigers, which creates higher overheads. And he has no idea what he is breeding. He has no concern for inbreeding. He breeds lions to tigers to create cross-breeds. Likewise Tim has no concern for purity of stock. He has no idea whether his tigers are Bengal tigers or any other subspecies. The tigers looks overweight and flabby. These are generic tigers. There are no controls over the keeping of these tigers. There is no licensing. It is just do as you please. And it is damaging the tiger in the wild as it possibly encourages the tiger body part trade.
These facilities have no connection with conservation, despite what Joe said. He said that there would be no tigers in the wild in 15 years. That is probably true and he is accelerating the process of extinction in the wild. He said that he wanted to present captive Siberian tigers to the public to remind them of Siberia, the home of the Siberian tiger.
This seems pointless if all the wild tigers are extirpated. He played with a juvenile tiger too hard and got himself bitten! This shows a lack of empathy with the cat. It really is self-indulgent, pseudo-macho behavior. These people like animals and become a sort of big cat hoarder. It is a version of cat hoarding on steroids.
I found the whole thing unnerving and depressing.
Joe seems a decent person but looks a bit like a camp cop with long blond hair and eyeliner (he was a cop once). And he had common sense (of a kind) but it all seemed so desperately wrong to me. He was being interviewed by Louis Theroux for the BBC. Louis also met up with Tim who has a lot of large wild animals including bears and tigers. Tim doesn't trust or respect any person including his wife and he said just that on TV with his wife standing beside him. She pays all the bills for his hobby! He keeps all these dangerous pets in small, muddy cages or enclosures.
Louis constantly questioned them about the morality of keeping animals in small cages that have naturally large territories. Tim had a good answer. He said that the bear has a large range because it has to travel large distances to find prey. Given a chance, the bear would eat human food given to it. Therefore the bear is happy living in a quarter acre enclosure. That theory applies to all wild animals, he implied. Is he correct? Joe had a similar justification. He said that tigers raised in cages knew nothing else. If they never had a large territory they would not miss it. Was he correct?
Tim boxed with a lynx. The lynx is a medium sized wildcat. I am not sure if the cat was declawed. I suspect it was. This was not proper treatment in my view.
Joe was going through difficult times financially. I am not surprised. It must cost a fortune to feed and maintain 1,400 animals. Animal rights activists in the area were causing a reduction in visitors to a road show of tigers and bears he presented in car parks. This caused a loss of revenue. He might have to close his business.
Joe said that if he went broke he would prefer to euthanize all his animals rather than relocate them. This sounds horrible and quite sick. By the way, this would not be euthanasia but plain killing. Was Joe thinking about cashing in? Dead tigers are very valuable in the Asian medicine market. I am thinking of tiger bone (for wine) and tiger penis (value $6,000) etc. Joe is sitting on a fortune in tiger penises alone (1 million bucks).
Despite his financial worries he still breeds tigers, which creates higher overheads. And he has no idea what he is breeding. He has no concern for inbreeding. He breeds lions to tigers to create cross-breeds. Likewise Tim has no concern for purity of stock. He has no idea whether his tigers are Bengal tigers or any other subspecies. The tigers looks overweight and flabby. These are generic tigers. There are no controls over the keeping of these tigers. There is no licensing. It is just do as you please. And it is damaging the tiger in the wild as it possibly encourages the tiger body part trade.
These facilities have no connection with conservation, despite what Joe said. He said that there would be no tigers in the wild in 15 years. That is probably true and he is accelerating the process of extinction in the wild. He said that he wanted to present captive Siberian tigers to the public to remind them of Siberia, the home of the Siberian tiger.
This seems pointless if all the wild tigers are extirpated. He played with a juvenile tiger too hard and got himself bitten! This shows a lack of empathy with the cat. It really is self-indulgent, pseudo-macho behavior. These people like animals and become a sort of big cat hoarder. It is a version of cat hoarding on steroids.
I found the whole thing unnerving and depressing.
What does digitigrade mean?
The domestic cat, is a digitigrade which means he/she walks on his toes or digits. In the video you can see a digitigrade animal, a serval, walking. It is quite difficult to see that cats are walking are their toes. Perhaps this is because we are so used to it.
The bones that extend from the paws to the first joint are the feet of the cat. The bones of the feet are the tarsal bones and they are quite long. These connect to the lower leg (the leg below the knee) via the hock. The human equivalent of the hock is the ankle. The hock of the hind legs of the serval in the video are about 9 inches off the ground.
You will see cats rest on their feet when they sit upright and sometimes when eating from a bowl. Dwarf cats are well known for taking up the meerkat position while sitting on their feet. My three legged cat Charlie does this.
The fact that a cat is a digitigrade makes it particularly cruel to declaw a cat as the operation is the removal of the last joint (phalange) of each of the toes. It is a partial amputation of the toe and the cat is meant to walk on his toes. What some do after declawing is walk on their wrists.
The bones that extend from the paws to the first joint are the feet of the cat. The bones of the feet are the tarsal bones and they are quite long. These connect to the lower leg (the leg below the knee) via the hock. The human equivalent of the hock is the ankle. The hock of the hind legs of the serval in the video are about 9 inches off the ground.
You will see cats rest on their feet when they sit upright and sometimes when eating from a bowl. Dwarf cats are well known for taking up the meerkat position while sitting on their feet. My three legged cat Charlie does this.
The fact that a cat is a digitigrade makes it particularly cruel to declaw a cat as the operation is the removal of the last joint (phalange) of each of the toes. It is a partial amputation of the toe and the cat is meant to walk on his toes. What some do after declawing is walk on their wrists.
Tigers as pets in UK
There would seem to be 14 tigers as pets in the UK. These are licensed under the Dangerous Wild Animal Act 1976. People keeping tigers as pets illegally cannot be counted as we don't know about them. The figure excludes zoos.
However, I would guess that there are probably no illegal tigers that are kept as pets in the UK. It is quite hard to keep a tiger secret from people in the UK as it is a relatively overcrowded country. I think the UK is the most crowded of all European countries. It would be quite hard to avoid neighbors noticing that you have a tiger in an enclosure. This would probably lead to the neighbor checking with the local authority.
The figure of 14 tigers in the UK being kept by licensed keepers comes from a freedom of information request made by the Big Cats in Britain research group. There are also 12 lions and 50 leopards - in all there are 154 wildcats kept as pets in the UK.
As a comparison, there are 164 tigers in Oklahoma, USA in USDA licensed facilities (10). The human population of Oklahoma is 3,687,05 (2009). The population of the UK is 61,838,154 (2009). There is a call for a ban on pet tigers in the USA especially after the recent gruesome killing of wildcats and other animals kept in a private facility. There is also a call to end the trade in generic tigers in the USA.
Note: Mr Joe Exotic has a big cat private zoo in Oklahoma. There are 176 tigers and I don't know how many ligers (lion/tiger hybrid) and lions at this zoo. I must presume that he is unlicensed as his zoo alone accounts for more than the total population of tigers in Oklahoma.
However, I would guess that there are probably no illegal tigers that are kept as pets in the UK. It is quite hard to keep a tiger secret from people in the UK as it is a relatively overcrowded country. I think the UK is the most crowded of all European countries. It would be quite hard to avoid neighbors noticing that you have a tiger in an enclosure. This would probably lead to the neighbor checking with the local authority.
The figure of 14 tigers in the UK being kept by licensed keepers comes from a freedom of information request made by the Big Cats in Britain research group. There are also 12 lions and 50 leopards - in all there are 154 wildcats kept as pets in the UK.
As a comparison, there are 164 tigers in Oklahoma, USA in USDA licensed facilities (10). The human population of Oklahoma is 3,687,05 (2009). The population of the UK is 61,838,154 (2009). There is a call for a ban on pet tigers in the USA especially after the recent gruesome killing of wildcats and other animals kept in a private facility. There is also a call to end the trade in generic tigers in the USA.
Note: Mr Joe Exotic has a big cat private zoo in Oklahoma. There are 176 tigers and I don't know how many ligers (lion/tiger hybrid) and lions at this zoo. I must presume that he is unlicensed as his zoo alone accounts for more than the total population of tigers in Oklahoma.
What is a mackerel tabby?
A mackerel tabby is a tabby cat - feral or domestic, or wild - that has a striped tabby coat. Wild cats are not normally referred to as having tabby coats, however.
There are three types of tabby coat: mackerel, spotted and classic (blotched). You can see all three on this page: What is a classic tabby?
The mackerel tabby is named after the mackerel fish. On the following page, I discuss in depth the tabby cat coat.
The photo of the fish is by kikikiliii (Flickr). The cat is a Toyger cat; a purebred designer cat.
There are three types of tabby coat: mackerel, spotted and classic (blotched). You can see all three on this page: What is a classic tabby?
The mackerel tabby is named after the mackerel fish. On the following page, I discuss in depth the tabby cat coat.
 |
| Mackerel tabby cat and mackerel (fish) |
The photo of the fish is by kikikiliii (Flickr). The cat is a Toyger cat; a purebred designer cat.
 | The photo of the cat on this page is protected by copyright ©. Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA). |
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