Tigers..

[chico2]

I was reading about the tiger that bit the young boy and was stunned to read the tiger belongs to a man in Ontario.I naively thought tigers and other magnificent big cats were not to be privately owned,not to live their lives in cages.....Is there not a law prohibiting ownership of exotic animals?
Are we that far behind the rest of the western world?

[cutelittlemako]

The man that owned our local pet shop (when I used to live with my parents), had a Lynx in his shop. I was his - and not for sale. He had this big cage set up in the middle of the store and there lived the lynx. He had a liscence for these kinds of animals, and I think he was in the process of getting a baby tiger (or something like that).

That man was aweful! He sold pets in his store (and that worked real well because there are very few breeders in Northern Ontario). My mom got a persian cat from him (yes we were naive back then) and it was supposed to be a female (we didn't check) and a month later we realized it was a male. The cat itself was fine - he came from an excellent breeder, we have the papers and pedigree to prove it - and he has never had any health problems, which is good since he's a persian. But nonetheless, the guy was an idiot!

All this to say that I think pretty much any person can get a liscence for these kinds of animals.

This guy's store burned down, killing all animals inside and the lynx too. What a tragedy!

[chico2]

Yes Mako,hopefully he does not own another store.
The damage done to these exotic animals is incredible,many go crazy and spend their lives pacing back and forth...it's an outrage
I am no fan of Zoo's but I can somewhat understand the need for them,no matter what,the animals should never have to endure a life in a cage,OMG that pushes us back into the 1940's when Zoo's were nothing but cages.
I thought we had evolved and cared about these beautiful animals....