bigcatawareness:

(Reference to the facility that dapartygrind was at in Australia)

It is the end all for me.  Because when staff are allowed to interact directly with large cats, it shows an incredible misunderstanding of the animals being cared for and a level of irresponsibility that has no place with wild animals, let alone apex predators.  It presents an image of the cats to the public where they are perceived as “large housecats” and continues the subculture of people that want to cuddle or even own big cats.  The decision to have direct contact with an adult lion or tiger is not “just the person’s decision” as people like to quickly point out.  They are also making the decision for the cat on whether or not they get to live if an attack takes place.  A lion that kills its handler is going to either be destroyed our put into isolation.  And that is never a situation we should be putting these animals in.

A place that also allows contact with cubs opens up a situation where we can get at risk animals sick(because if a 4 week old cub is spending all day in the hands of strangers, they are certainly not nursing off their mothers and building their immune systems).  No one ever asks why the cubs aren’t with their mothers.  And season after season of new cubs being presented for interaction, the excuse would always remain the same: “the mom rejected them.”  An easy out that makes people feel better about providing “TLC” to poor abandoned cubs that were probably taken from their mothers at birth for such encounters.  Any place that allows cub petting, no matter how good they seem or how much they condemn “shady” petting schemes is simply creating a situation where “WE are the only good ones so spend your money here!”  It’s misleading, dishonest, and regardless of what they say still fuels an industry.  People that pet cubs at a “nice” place will think that cub petting is acceptable anywhere that can maintain a good outward appearance. “I pet a tiger at this one place and it seemed okay, so we should go to the mall this weekend, they’ll have cubs and it’ll support conservation!”

Any place that allows direct contact with lethal wild animals, or exploits the young of said animals is absolutely a bad facility in my book.  They can tout about their conservation ideals as much as they want, but as long as they irresponsibly and dangerously manage their animals in a way that does NOT fall in line with giving the animals the best care, I will not ever consider them a great or excellent facility.