#big cat sanctuary

orcinus-ocean:

The Elephant in the Living Room(reviewed by me here) is an animal rights documentary that lies about exotic pets and their owners in order to scare the public into supporting bans.

They lie about care. They lie about laws. They lie about security. They lie about incidents. And they lie about the “sanctuaries” the animals end up in.

In my long row of criticisms against exotic animal “sanctuaries”, is this criticism against TWAS, or “The Wild Animal Sanctuary” in Colorado.

The film in question presents TWAS as a vast, savannah-like paradise, where animals can roam free, like their natural habitat (though one can question how “natural” it is for a black bear to roam a vast, treeless plain).

What is conveniently not mentioned is that TWAS owns hundreds of large animals, and only a handful of these large savannah-like enclosures.

I do not know what the standard of care in itself is at TWAS, or the mortality rate of their animals. But this is no ground any honest person can stand on, and use to criticize zoos.

Because surely, if any zoo (or private “pet owner”) kept their tigers and lions in cages like those above, they would be roundly condemned by animal rights activists and organizations everywhere, as a “prison camp” for wildlife.

It is embarrassing.

Urgh… in the last episode of Tiger King season 2, they showed that 100-some cats that were confiscated from Jeff Lowe (and they should have been, he obviously doesn’t care about the animals), they moved to the beautiful, vast, lovely sanctuary of TWAS in Colorado.

This means it’s high time to repost this one.

They complained that the cats used to be in “tiny cages”… well that’s what TWAS is, it’s kennel life for tigers. They only use those large savannah-like enclosures temporarily, and show them for the PR. Never would you see them show the reality of where the majority of their hundreds of animals live, for the majority of the time.

“There is no place for these animals to go!” they (sanctuary owners in general) cry. Well, there would be, if you didn’t keep pushing to ban all private owners and small zoos.

As for BCR, they sure are focusing a lot on the drama of “who killed Don Lewis?” which is interesting and important, but I haven’t heard a peep of criticism against BCR in this season, and in season 1, only a single short segment where they let Joe speak on how dreadful Carole Baskin’s roadside zoo is, if I recall correctly.

Because it is exactly that, a roadside zoo.It is not a sanctuary. It is a zoo that accepts visitors for money and gives tours. It even lets people pet cats, when they’re sedated. (And these are the people who scream about “dRugGeD TigERs!”)

But since they do not breed, they can only get more animals by “stealing” (that is, getting the government to take from others and give to them) other people’s animals.

I have still never seen a single zoo, sanctuary, private owner, in modern day, that keeps its cats as poorly as Carole Baskin’s BCR. It is a mystery how that place is still open, and she has not been put in jail or had her animals taken away.

So in other news: Wild animal sanctuaries and animal rights activists lie.