May 12, 2005
The
Siberian Tigers of ... Minnesota?
By Doug McGill
The McGill Report
ROCHESTER, MN -- More wild
tigers now live as pets and in roadside zoos, breeding kennels, and
privately-run wildlife attractions in the
U.S.
than in their native Asian habitats, according to certified zookeepers
and wildlife conservationists.
Estimates of the number of wild tigers kept as pets and in rural
exhibition parks in the U.S. range as high as 10,000, while tigers
remaining in
the wild habitats of eastern Russia, China, India, Indonesia, and southeast
Asia number less than 5,000, conservationists say.
A bizarre side-effect of globalization with its impact now clearly
visible in Minnesota, the rise in privately-owned tigers is driving
a dramatic
rise in tiger-related accidents here and across the U.S. Increasing
numbers of sanctuaries, including one in Minnesota, are also being
built for
wild cats abandoned by their owners or seized in raids of illegal
breeding operations.
Small Minnesota farmers, looking to develop new sources of revenue
after losing business to giant agribusiness operations, sometimes
turn to exhibiting
exotic animals, or breeding them to sell as pets. Such business
contributes to the health of rural Minnesota economies, the farmers-turned-zookeepers
argue.
But conservationists say that breeding wild cats for such purposes
is inhumane, environmentally unsound, and dangerous.
Bites and
Swipes
“It’s more than a pet issue,” said Tammy Quist, director of
the Wildcat Sanctuary in Isanti County. “It’s a public safety
risk.” In recent months, the sanctuary has taken in wild cats from
rural homes, amateur zoos, backyards and basements in Red Wing, Burnsville,
Edina, and Golden Valley.
The sanctuary gets 30 calls a month from Minnesota pet owners
who bought a tiger cub but can’t handle a grown cat; from police who confiscate
the cats; and from humane societies that pick up abused tigers and cougars.
Filled to overcapacity, the Wildcat Sanctuary is raising money to build
a larger facility to accommodate the growing number of wildcats in need
of a home.
Two tiger maulings in Minnesota in recent weeks testify
to the growing numbers of privately-owned wildcats in
the U.S.
On April
27, a Minneapolis
woman was seriously injured after being attacked by four
tigers while cleaning their pen at a private property
near Frontenac.
On March 6, a teenager was swiped by a tiger at the Arcangel
Wildlife farm near Underwood, and later developed a
serious wound infection
that required healthy skin grafts to heal.
In 2001, a tiger at a roadside animal park in Racine
was euthanized after biting a Rochester girl. In
2003, another
tiger at the
site, called Bearcat
Hollow, was killed after biting a woman on the wrist.
Rampant Cross-Breeding
More than 600 tigers and other wild cats were confiscated
in the U.S. last year, with roughly half that
number euthanized to test
for rabies
or after no suitable sanctuary could be found
for them, according to Ron Tilson, the director of
conservation at the Minnesota
Zoo. Four
humans were killed and 40 were injured by tigers
and
other big cats that year,
including 13 children. The year before, there
were 33 such incidents reported in the U.S.
Contrary to popular notions, virtually all privately-owned
tigers in this country do not come from Asia,
but rather are bred from
parents here in the United States. Most wildcats
are as easy to breed as
house
cats and have similar-sized litters. Cubs fetching
between $500 and $2,000 apiece have lured many
entrepreneurs into the business.
Only
later do
they find how difficult it is to maintain a
safe and humane tiger breeding operation.
Rampant cross-breeding of species and mating
parent-child pairs has degraded the gene
pool of the five purebred
tiger species
in the
world, and resulted
in the U.S. wildcat population becoming a “genetic cocktail” that
is entirely unfit for ever returning to the wild, according to Tilson.
“They are being bred
for profit, for sale as pets and for their products, including their
skins, bones, whiskers, and for taxidermy,” Tilson
said. “All of this is done on the black market, illegally or quietly.”
"Generic Tigers"
Some wildlife groups say that U.S.-bred tigers are sold to “canned
hunt” operations, mostly in Texas, where wealthy hunters pay to
hunt tigers, lions, and other big game wild animals that are released
on game farms.
A cross-breed between a housecat and
the African serval wildcat, called
a Savannah,
has in recent
years become
a popular pet
in the U.S., selling
for between $4,000 and $10,000 a
cat. Servals themselves have also become
popular pets,
but two attacks
by servals against
children
have raised
warning signals, and conservationists
decry the breeding and cross-breeding
of such
cats as inhumane
and ethically
questionable.
The population of up to 10,000 privately-owned
tigers in the U.S. began, wildlife
experts believe, in the 1970’s when parents from
the wild were mated who originally were smuggled into the U.S. from Asia,
or were illicitly sold from traveling circuses and zoos to unscrupulous
entrepreneurs.
The offspring of those parents
have since been interbred countless
times,
creating
virtually
a new, sixth
breed of tiger in the
world called “generic
captive tiger” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
In the past decade, breeders
found an eager market for these
tigers
among people
who
wanted to boast
that they
owned a
wild tiger.
Horrible Monsters
“It’s like buying a fancy car or a bigger house,” said Leigh
Henry, program officer for TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring branch
of the World Wildlife Fund. “It’s a macho thing. People want
to be known for owning the biggest pet on the block.”
Tigers start out as mewing
kittens, but within a year
can kill with
a single swipe and need
20 pounds
a day
of fresh
meat
to eat. “It
takes thousands of dollars a year to keep them,” said Tom Solin,
a private investigator in Bellingham, Washington who helps law enforcement
handle increasing numbers of wildcat cases. “Within a year they
are in predator-prey mode.”
Many private breeders say
they are performing a
public service
by increasing
a species
that is
endangered
in its native
habitat. But
this is not
at all true, say wildcat
conservation experts
say.
“They create a
lot of horrible genetic monsters,” Tilson said. He
said many deformed and mutant cubs must be euthanized along with the
healthy ones that are born. But even the healthy ones could never survive
in the wild.
“You lose significant
genes through inbreeding,” he said. “You
start getting lower fecundity, more susceptibility to disease, and less
ability to survive trauma. It’s all about profit. Not a single
organization would use these tigers in a recovery program.” In
such programs, animals bred in captivity are released into the wild to
keep endangered species from going extinct.
Safe and Humane?
The rise in tiger
maulings in recent
years, including
the near-fatal
attack on the
Las Vegas performer
Roy Horn in
2003, has prompted
several states
to pass laws prohibiting
the
private ownership
of wild
cats.
In May, 2004,
Minnesota passed
such a law,
but present
owners of own
wild cats
are
exempted, as
are breeders
in compliance
with
the U.S.
Department
of Agriculture,
which oversees
animal breeding
operations.
Fourteen states
have comprehensive
laws
banning private
ownership
of wild and
exotic animals;
nine (including
Minnesota)
have partial
bans;
13 have some
form of regulations;
and 14
states
have no relevant
legislation,
according
to
Nicole Paquette,
the
director
of legal and government
affairs for
the Animal
Protection
Institute,
in Sacramento,
CA.
Opponents
of such
legislation, including
the Feline
Conservation
Federation,
argue that
small zoo
and
breeding
operations
are on
the whole safe
and humane
and are
helping
preserve endangered
species
for future
generations.
In the
debate
preceding
passage
of
the
2004
Minnesota law,
FCF spokesman
Lynn
Culver
argued
that
family farms
that
raise
exotic animals
support
many
other local businesses
including
veterinarians,
feed
companies, and building
supply
stores.
“Not only are private,
USDA-licensed breeders helping wildlife species, they are also important
to rural economies,” Culver said.
Copyright
@
2005 The
McGill
Report