It is never pleasant to see wild animals caged and abused. A new report by the NGO World Animal Protection suggests that captive-breeding operations for lions and tigers have expanded to meet an increasing demand for big cat products used in traditional Asian medicine. While this is clearly bad news for the captive cats themselves, confined in often horrible conditions, we are not convinced by the report’s findings on what this means for wild populations.
Animal welfare organisations often suggest that farming wild species will lead to an increased loss of animals from their natural habitats. Either this is because animals are taken from the wild to stock the farms, or because the sale of farmed products increases demand for the wild version, leading to more illegal killing (also known as “poaching”).
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Coroner Nicholas Moss asked Andrew Swales, the founder and current director of the company that runs the zoo, near Sawtry, to refer to a statement he made just after Rosa died on May 29, 2017.
Rosa, 33, senior carnivore keeper at the zoo, suffered traumatic injuries after being mauled by the male Malayan tiger called Cicip.
Mr Swales said slide [gate three] was open, which gave the tiger free access to the paddock area which Rosa then re-entered to clean a visitor's viewing window just after 9.30am.
Mr Swales explained the tiger should have been shut in its den overnight and Rosa would have been unlikely to have let him out first as she would have been aware of the difficulties of letting him into the paddock, then attempting to coax him back to the den to allow the cleaning to take place.
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Two wildlife advocacy groups have petitioned California to grant endangered species status to the state’s mountain lions to help protect them from encroachments that threaten to drive them to extinction.
“Our mountain lions are dying horrible deaths from car collisions and rat poison, and their populations are at risk from inbreeding,” warned Tiffany Yap, a biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity, which presented the petition with the Mountain Lion Foundation. “Without a clear legal mandate to protect mountain lions from the threats that are killing them and hemming them in on all sides, these iconic wild cats will soon be gone from Southern California.”
The striking apex predators that roam the hills of Southern California are critical to the region’s ecosystem yet are increasingly threatened by development and a crisscross snare of highways. If cars don’t kill the animals, the roadways tend to keep populations isolated, significantly reducing mating opportunities and the big cats’ genetic diversity, which affects their health.
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Residents in a Nottinghamshire village have labelled it a "travesty of justice" that a man has been allowed to keep two lion cubs and a puma there.
Earlier this week, Broxtowe Borough Council's planning committee went against the advice of the planning officer by allowing Reece Oliver, 28, to keep the animals in an enclosure at his home in Strelley Village - close to the M1 motorway.
Mr Oliver, who is an international show jumper and is fully licenced to own big cats, punched the air in the public gallery as the result was read out on Wednesday, June 26.
His animals include Rogue, a two-and-a-half-year-old Canadian puma, who weighs up to 65 kilos and is knee height.
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An experienced photographer claims to have spotted a "big cat" near Alves.
Gazette snapper Eric Cormack was out on a shoot near Alves Old Parish Church with a colleague on work experience when he spotted something dart across his vision in his viewfinder.
He said: "It bounded across the field around 300 yards away - it's tail was really long and moved differently to a domestic cat. It swallowed up the ground really quickly with its long legs."
Eric immediately changed from a wide-angle lens to a zoom but the animal was only in view for 30 seconds.
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"A course comprising three cycles of vaccination has been completed. All the big cats are now virus-free and fit," said chief conservator of forest Dushyant Vasavda told Hindustan Times.
But there is chance of lower immunity, their presence can possibly put the lives of other big cats in danger if they catch CDV again and hence the forest department has decided not reintroduced the Lions to the wild.
However, they are mulling a plan to use these lions for gene pool research, breeding, and animal exchange programmes between zoos.
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It was possibly the scariest ride of their lives -- a tiger hot on their heels as they travelled near a national park in Kerala, India.
The big cat dashed out of the forest and chased after two men riding a motorcycle on the road.
The pair were officials from the forest department, which has been recently patrolling the area after receiving a tip-off of a tiger sighting, the Hindustan Times reported.
Find the animal they did -- it was running right after their vehicle.
Fortunately, the tiger did not continue with the pursuit and leapt into the surrounding woodwork.
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