Why doesn't Big Cat Rescue breed? Meet
Sundari. Sundari was born here back in
1996, before we learned that no privately
held exotic cats can serve any sort of
conservation purpose. Back then in the
pre-internet era of the 90s
the only people we could turn to for
advice were breeders and dealers, who
lied to us about the necessity of
breeding exotic cats to save them. As
soon as we learned better
we stopped breeding and began
campaigning to end the abuse of breeding
wild cats for life in cages. There is no
reason to breed tigers or any other big
cats for lives of confinement and
deprivation. The only sanctioned
international breeding plans for exotic
cats are called Species Survival plans
and they are only carried out in
accredited zoos. None of the captive
breeding of exotic cats is doing
anything to save them in the wild.
The wild cats in private hands mostly
came as zoo surplus and was sold out the
back door with no records or pedigrees.
Unfortunately it still happens today
those animals were then bred and many
purposefully inbred for such traits as a
white coat, tiny size and a docile
temperament.
None of the exotic cats in wild hands
can be traced back to the wild, other
than the local cats: cougars and bobcats
who may have been snatched from the wild
in the US. For that reason they can never
be bred for introduction back into the
wild. First no such program exists, and
even if by some act of God all human
settlements were wiped out of some vast
area and it became suitable for wildlife
again, these captive bred cats could
never survive. There are other reasons in
the real world why it doesn't work, which
includes the fact that human Big Cat
conflict is one of the main reasons cats
are wiped out of areas.
Captive breeding not only selectively
chooses animals that are least fit for the
wild, but also conditions the cats not to
fear humans. That increases the conflict
and the result is that not only would the
offending cat be killed but likely any
wild cat seen in the area will be hunted
down and killed in case of mistaken
identity. That escalates the extinction
of cats in the wild. Last but maybe most
important: if you can pay to see wild
cats on your terms, cheaply, in a cage
or being forced to let you touch them and have your
photo taken with them or their young, you
aren't learning anything about who these
animals really are.
You aren't learning about how they fit
into a complex environment when they are
housed in a situation that does not
duplicate all the web of life that they
are part of in the wild. All Wildcats
roam territories that are calculated in
miles, not square feet. To know anything
about them, you have to see them for who
they really are in their real
environment.
Conservation is a very complex issue and
the captive setting does not duplicate
it, so the important work of saving
entire ecosystems is not taught and not
done in a captive setting.
What's worse is that the lip service is
paid to these worthy objectives.
When you pay to see thw captive wildlife, you walk away
thinking you did something good, when in
fact you contributed to the problem.
You pay to see a cat in a cage you make
sure that the industry continues to
breed and exploit more cats. You did
not pay to save the wild and all of the
wonderous and magnificent creatures who
call it home. You put another nail in the
coffin for the planet. Sundari
demonstrates better than most the fact
that you may be able to take the animal
out of the wild but you'll never be able
to take the wild out of an animal. Want
to volunteer, intern, donate or simply
learn more about us and our mission?
Visit Big Cat Rescue dot org today. You
can be a voice for these cats.
Go to BigCatAct.com and make the Call of the Wild. [Music] -EDITED-VJ-DQ