Occasionally there will be a report of an exotic big cat on the loose—a tiger or lion, for example. It happened here locally in California some years ago—and the end result is usually a death sentence for the animal. In the case near our city, evidently someone was keeping tigers illegally and when it escaped, rather than report it or help in the cat’s recover, the owner went into hiding. When the cat was found, it was killed. I believe the owners were eventually found and heavily fined.
Sometimes we hear about a circus animal escaping and causing havoc in neighborhoods. These creatures aren’t accustomed to freedom and all that goes with it and most often are shot for the safety of citizens and their pets. Here’s the story of a very recent escape and the sad ending: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-strange-and-deadly-saga-of-15-circus-cats%e2%80%99-final-week-in-america/ar-AAt1PxH?li=BBnbcA1&srcref=rss
Did you know that there are hundreds of exotic big cats living legally—with permits—
throughout the United States and authorities don’t know how many are being kept in basements and backyards without permits. Here’s an interesting list of those that were registered in 2011 and 2014. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-rQZK2lBPese4Lyq4mcS_g75Zjc_l0YxYo5wD6f_IOo/edit#gid=4
Who would keep or try to keep a tiger in their backyard? You might be surprised. A baby tiger was confiscated just recently when someone tried to smuggle it across the Mexican border into San Diego.
How does this impact the rest of us? Here’s a site where you can read about this, as it documents some of the over 700 big cat attacks in the US occurring since 1990. https://bigcatrescue.org/big-cat-attacks
Whew, this is a dismal topic, but one you may want to explore in case you want to get behind a movement to ban ownership of exotic big cats by anyone other than a zoo or put stiffer restrictions on these cats being brought into the US, for example. The sad thing about the current regulations is that evidently no one is monitoring the care and safety measures for these cats and some of them do escape into a world they do not understand.
(Artwork by Susan Colla) (Tiger photo taken at a big cat sanctuary in Southern CA)
