Most of the people that say "I want to buy a tiger"
are what you can classify as impulse buyers, people who say, "If I raise it from a cub, it won't bite me, will it?"
I can house break it if it grows up in my house
it will never eat my children
If you're a bad guy and you want to make money and have a much lower chance of
getting caught, the wildlife trade is perfect because you know what's the
likelihood that some municipal police officers going to know that the critter
you have in your bag or that you have in your car is a legal lizard or the
world's most endangered lizard
even if they are apprehended you don't see people going away for decades for
selling endangered species
if you're selling drugs you may go away for decades.
Wildlife trafficking worldwide is estimated to be a 19 billion dollar a year business which
puts it only underneath drug trafficking human trafficking and arms smuggling it's
as lucrative to deal in wildlife as it is to deal in heroin cocaine or
automatic weapons
the president of the united states has made it a priority in his administration to look
at wildlife trafficking one, we need to save these species and two, it's become a
national security issue and it's a worldwide issue that needs to be solved
by many countries throughout the world
to disrupt these criminal networks that are profiting in pretty much the death
of a lot of these iconic species
in the wildlife trade the types of people you run into are people just
doing it for profit
and if that means wiping out the species, they'll move on to something else
then there's the people that do it because of ego
it's almost like the macho factor, can I get the most dangerous the most venomous
the hottest snake that's out there sometimes they just want to be able to
say look I have this extremely rare animal that there's only X number left
in the world and I have one sitting here in my living room
there's a lot of exotic species that are held in the pet trade here in the united
states some states make it illegal
some states don't have regulations at all in regards to exotics or animals
that aren't native to the state
Can be tigers, lions, cougars, leopards, sometimes individuals will own chimpanzees
it's up to the states to regulate them within the states
A lot of these animals are incredibly friendly but that doesn't mean they're safe
these animals will kill you because they like you
"Hi, let's play"
"oh, you broke"
If you go in the cage with one of these animals you are at risk
If you stick your hands in the cages with these animals, you are at risk
if you're not in the cage and the cage is secure
you're safe
Hi, Parker
My name is Joe Taft and I am the founder and director of the Exotic Feline Rescue Center
the Exotic Feline Rescue Center houses about 225 big cats including 140 tigers
We take cats from around the United States to the best of
my knowledge we are the second largest collection of big cats in the country
we don't buy them, sell them, or breed them. We're strictly a rescue operation
These animals are bred in this country in captivity and they have been for many
many generations and they proliferated through private hands and went to people who
had no idea or no ability to provide them care
you know we don't have many people who say I am prepared to make a 20 year
commitment to an animal that I know can kill me and I know will eat me out of
house and home
we feed between three and four thousand pounds of meat here every day and as
we're putting that meat out, we'll pick up between 800 and 1,000 pounds of
bone out of the cages.
Cubs are cute and cuddly but they are something that you
need to plan on caring for for a long time
This animal belonged to a retired circus trainer and when he retired he walked an
elephant into the barn and chained it to the floor and pulled nine big cats into
the barn and that's where they stayed in circus wheel cages for 10 years
Hi, Hi
she lived her whole life in a cage that was 5 foot by 7
and despite the fact she's got this big habitat
when she gets bored or stressed
you see that little circle that she paces
that's part of the psychological impact on what's happened to her
We're going to ohio where we're going to pick up a cougar
it's an eight year old spayed, declawed, female
we don't know who the people are all we have is an address and a phone call from
the people that they want to give this animal up
Ohio had virtually no regulation about the keeping of exotic animals until just recently
not until after the incident in Zanesville about two years ago there was
somebody who had a large collection of big cats for some reason this guy went
out one night and turned all of his cats loose and then committed suicide
and all of those cats ended up being killed because when you've got 60 lions
and tigers running around at night
unsecured that's the only thing you can do
As a result of that situation there was a political backlash in Ohio
Ohio has passed a lot of laws so it's going to be interesting to see what we find today
I don't know what... this situation is that we're walking into right now
it could be a sad case of he just can't follow what Ohio is making them do and
it could be, could be that he wasn't doing what he needed to do anyways when
When I started with big cats
there were no regulations of any kind involved from the point of view of the state
it was no different than having a cocker spaniel or a German Shepherd
I just went to the local pet store said hey I'll take one of those
I lived with the leopard for almost 19 years, she had the run of my house
she slept in my bed all of her life and most of the people who were
involved in it were
fairly serious about it and then cats started being bred in puppy mills and
sold on the Internet
sold cheaply, we have some Tigers that were sold at an auction for $25 a piece
These auctions take place in states where they don't have a state law
against the sale of endangered species where they don't have state laws against
the... the buying and selling of exotic species of species that aren't found in
that state and what typically then happens is that state is then used as a
loophole to launder illegal big cats or illegal wildlife with legal and what a
lot of people don't understand is how those species got into the United States
how are those animals bred
There is a large amount of people here in the united states that feel like
they want to have something that's rare
Her name is Zoe?
tough time for you huh?
It is, It is, this really sucks
yeah all because of that guy in Zanesville huh
today we found a couple of people who have taken very good care of an animal
for a long time in a very secure cage
now you have to understand a lot of this is quite unusual for us
you want to get her back in here?
The owner thought he was going to be able to pick
the animal up in his arms and put him in our cage, that didn't work out well
It was a dangerous situation that's the kind of situation I do not ever like
to see if that would have been a wild cougar than you'd have a lot of people
that were either dead or in the hospital
we got the animal back in her original enclosure and then we had to immobilize her
"That was scary"
"Yup"
"That was fucking scary"
The drugs we're using are ketamine and dexmedetomidine
"Quit shaking there Zoe" "oh, sorry I was just..."
this will be better for her because once she's inside the cage having not really
known anything else
she's likely to have a very difficult time on the transport back
this will keep her calm and in a more or less sleepy state the whole way back
She's fighting it but she might go down
"Nice shot, Dave"
we did get her immobilized eventually
"okie dokie"
And then we moved her into our cage
"Alright, just shove her in the best you can"
OK
"I don't want you in that cage, she's too awake"
"Ok, Let's get this gate down"
Too many people get these animals because it's an ego thing because they
want to say that they control a big cat that they have a big cat for a pet and
these animals get huge and I don't care how sweet they are
that is a potential danger we pull cats out of places that are neighborhoods
there are kids and stuff nearby
that's a pretty scary thing
I think she's going to make this transition really well now that she's
surrounded by tigers and leopards she'll be able to see the neighbors, herr
neighbors will be able to see her and that's gotta be quite overwhelming
for her, I mean, she could see three dogs from where she was, three dogs and a cat
this family also had a bear looked very healthy very well-cared-for very clean
they have done a good job with their animals and they live someplace where
there were no laws regarding the keeping of exotic animals
I mean they weren't criminals they weren't mean people, still, people that keep lions
and tigers and other big dangerous animals need to be under some kind of
regulatory system.
There are more big cats in private hands than there are in the wild now, and you know at some
point you've got to say to yourself
what's the quality of life here and if you have one of these creatures
you need to consider more than just the pride of ownership
it's a being, it's a life, you want a feline get you a house cat