Don’t Try This at Home
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| It would take more than $8,000 per year just to feed these hungry felines. |
A lion previously housed at the National Zoo after being rescued from a private
owner is a powerful reminder of the serious problems
that private possession of exotic animals creates
for both people and the animals themselves. Rescued
great cats typically come from the exotic pet trade,
where animals are bred to produce cute and cuddly cubs.
These “balls of fur” have the potential
to seriously injure or kill people and other animals
as they mature. Such felines—weighing between
300 and 500 pounds as adults and eating ten to 15 pounds
of raw meat each day—cannot be domesticated.
Wild cats rarely live healthy, happy lives in private, captive environments,
which usually fail to meet their special care, housing,
nutrition, and social needs. Pet cats were domesticated thousands of years ago. Even when raised from birth, wild animals cannot be domesticated within their lifetime. Even if a wild cat is gentle for years, its instincts might lead it to attack out of the blue. Also, wild animals may be susceptible to diseases and parasites that could be spread to humans. Local veterinarians don't have the training to treat exotic animals.
Properly caring for big cats costs thousands. One wildlife sanctuary estimates that the annual expenses of maintaining a big cat run about $8,000 (including food, vet bills, and medications), a fraction of the estimated $94,000 it costs to set up proper handling facilities. When private owners realize that they can no longer care for their high-cost exotic “pets,” they turn to zoos or other rescue organizations to take over the responsibility.
But the number of unwanted exotic pets far outstrips the capacity of qualified organizations to care for them. As a result, the majority are euthanized, killed for pelts or body parts, shot in canned hunts, abandoned, or doomed to live in deplorable conditions. None of these captive cats can be released in the wild, and breeding them does nothing to protect a species’ natural habitat. The National Zoo is doing its part to help protect lions in the wild by studying their social and behavioral traits at the Great Cats exhibit here at the Zoo.
