Reasons Why You Should Never Pay to Take Photos With Baby Tigers Or Pet Them

Baby tigers are totally cute, adorable and they look like a wild version of your house cat. Thinking about taking a photo with a baby tiger? Here’s why you should never pay to have such a picture, no matter how cute you think they are.

Breeders that offer people a chance to cuddle with baby tigers for a few minutes call themselves “rescuers” and operate “sanctuaries”. The truth is that true rescuers and sanctuaries never breed. Breeding more tigers simply adds to the number of big cats that end up living in deplorable conditions or being destroyed to supply the illegal trade in tiger parts.

The cubes don’t have a good life while being used to make money. They are torn from their mothers shortly after birth, causing emotional pain to both the cubs and the mothers. In stead of roaming, exploring, testing their young muscles to develop coordination, and sleeping for extended periods of time without interruption, they are repeatedly awakened so a customer can pet them. They spend too many hours in small cages in trucks, hardly a suitable environment for inquisitive, active young cubs.

Breeders often say that blowing in the cubs face “calms” them down… This blowing in the face is a way mother tigers discipline their cubs. It is a punishment. They become inactive temporarily not because they get calm, they become inactive hoping that not moving will cause the exhibitor to stop blowing in their face.

They also say that they must keep constantly breeding and using the cubs to make money because that is the only way he can support the adult animals they keep. No true animal lover could justify abusing some animals to provide financial support for others.

Paying to pet or to take photos with baby tigers does not support conservation in the wild!

“There is a huge and growing market for tiger parts like the skins pictured here, and tiger “derivatives”, i.e. products made out of tiger parts like tiger bone wine. A dead tiger is worth up to $50,000 for its parts. Breeding what US Fish and Wildlife Service calls “generic” tigers like the ones used in the mall exhibits is not tracked. So there is no way to know how many U.S. born tigers are killed to have their parts illegally sold into this trade. And, the more that trade expands, the more incentive the poachers have to kill tigers in the wild.” explains Big Cat Rescue.

Learn the truth about tiger cub petting displays: bigcatrescue.org.

For more information about the amazing work of the team from Big Cat Rescue sanctuary, please visit: BigCatRescue.org or Facebook.