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Many of us have seen them, and some of us have either taken them ourselves, or been envious of those friends that have been able to travel to distant countries and get up close and personal with tigers and lions to get that coveted selfie. Guaranteeing a slew of Facebook likes and comments, this picture is sure to make your friends jealous. But at what cost does it take to get this selfie? Surely these lions and tigers are trained in such a way so they won’t attack in order to ensure your safety as the tourist. But is it really worth it?
Lions and tigers that are used at tourist attractions are often heavily sedated, trained using violence as a means of control, and the baby cubs are taken from their mothers at just a few weeks old. The babies don’t even get to drink their mother’s milk after this and are instead fed a milk substitute so that the hoards of tourists have a chance to feed the baby cubs out of bottles, for yet again another ‘adorable’ photo op. You can’t necessarily blame the tourists, though. Most people are ignorant to how these animals are being treated and just assume it is with with love and care. The fact of the matter, though, is that anytime you are taking animals out of their natural habitat and restricting them to living in cages and doing tricks, you better believe that there is something wrong with this picture, and by no means did those animals walk into the cages, enclosures, and zoos willing to be a part of this money making machine designed to profit off of tourists. The following video shows footage from Dade City’s Wild Things, a popular animal attraction park, and how the staff was mistreating the animals there. Cubs were being jerked around by the leash, dragged by the neck, hit, grabbed and even tossed into a pool; there are other clear instances of abuse and neglect. |
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