This morning I learned that an estimated 10-20,000 big cats are kept as “pets” in the United States. 5,000 of these are tigers, which exceeds the number of wild tigers left: about 3,900.
This photo is from a story that recently made the news and is just one of countless instances where these animals are found in basement or garage cages, often agitated and living in deplorable conditions. These “pets” are typically owned by people who have no knowledge or room to raise such an animal. Once they become too big or ferocious to handle, they are further isolated and neglected.
There are also yearly cases of killings and maulings if these animals get loose, posing a threat to both owners and their neighbors alike.
In response, Representative Jeff Dunham (D-CA) has reintroduced the Big Cat Public Safety Act (H.R. 1818) to prohibit ownership of big cats by private individuals and unqualified exhibitors. Please, tell your U.S. representative to cosponsor this commonsense legislation today.
I’m not actually dead, just improbably busy! Things might not settle down for a while, but I have a wicked urge to dress up at the mo, so if we’re all lucky there will be further pictures shortly ^^
I’ll try to wade into my backlog of messages too, so apologies if I haven’t responded yet, I’ve not been ignoring, just slacking. It is among my special skills.
View more in the Biodiversity Heritage Library with thanks to the Gerstein Science Information Centre of the University of Toronto Libraries for digitizing.
Explore more public domain illustrations uploaded by Biodiversity Heritage Library in their Flickr account and gathered into my gallery.
Hello dear followers! Just wanted to say thank you all for the love you’ve shown my artwork over the course of this page…and now for some news! I’ve recently started an Instagram account, so if you enjoy my drawings please head over to @christinebiandraws to check out some of my latest doodles. LOVE, PEACE, AND WOOLY FLEECE (or…HONKING GEESE? CHOCOLATE MEESE? Are meese more than one mouse, or more than one moose…?)
![[Diary of the Unknown]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/avatar_317e1d693d4c_30.png){kind=avatar}
