How to Recognise an Abused Tiger

[queerbychoice]

First of all, let me say that it is indeed deeply appalling and disturbing that, according to a recent BBC News article, "an estimated 10,000 tigers [are] kept by private citizens in America - that is more than remain in the wild." The vast majority of these tigers quite probably do live in conditions which are very miserable for any tiger to have to endure, and it's also miserable for us humans to not be able to trust our next-door neighbors to not be keeping tigers in their apartments. In one of the most appalling incidents I've ever read about 90 dead tigers lying around in various states of decay were found at a California home last spring where a child was also residing.

However, PETA's recent reaction to Roy Horn's recent injury - accusing Roy of "beating" the tiger and abusing it - is absurd. Siegfried and Roy have been performing with numerous tigers and lions for over 35 years and have never been injured by any of them before. Anyone who has ever lived with an ordinary domesticated housecat can tell you just how miraculous it would be to live with a bunch of different domesticated housecats for 35 years before ever once being bitten or scratched by any of them! I've never managed much more than one or two years without a scratch or a bite from a cat myself. Siegfried & Roy's tigers were wandering around leashless and it took over 35 years before they ever once attacked anyone? Let me tell you, if those tigers had been feeling the least bit miserable and abused, those tigers would have attacked someone a hell of a lot earlier than that. Those tigers have to be very happy tigers to have never ever attacked anyone for the first 35 years.

Contrary to myth, a tiger is no more incapable of being happy outside of a real live full-size jungle in its full natural state than humans are - who once also, after all, resided in jungles. This does not mean that locking a tiger up in a back room of an apartment with only 10 feet of breathing space and no one else around for company, as Antoine Yates did in Harlem, is anything other than severe unforgivable tiger abuse; it just means that there's a world of difference between Antoine Yates's apartment and the conditions in which Siegfried & Roy house their tigers. Siegfried & Roy's tigers are showered with affection, respect, and space to roam; Antoine Yates's tiger was locked in a room by itself which no one ever dared enter after the tiger reached adulthood, into which Antoine Yates fearfully tossed food through a crack in the door while trying to stay out of the tiger's reach. Keeping a human child in those conditions would be abuse too!

I am not saying that Siegfried & Roy didn't make any mistakes, though - I do believe that they should have had more handlers on the stage at the time and kept the tigers on leashes, both of which other illusionists who work with tigers do. I believe they failed to protect themselves from the tigers as well as they should have. But I believe they got overconfident that way precisely because they were so good at what they did, at the basic issue of keeping the tigers happy, calm, and content. There is no question in my mind that those tigers had to have been very happy indeed in order not to have ever attacked anyone long before now - and if there's really any question in the mind of the PETA president, then I can only conclude that the PETA president has never spent any time at all around domesticated housecats.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

10,000!!!, I heard a little but about this when they passed a law a few years ago making keeping big cats inside Portland illegal and I assumed there were maybe a few hundred in the US. Gods, those 10,000 should be in zoo breeding programs, game farms, or pretty much anywhere but in the houses and backyards of the crazy scumbags keeping them. That a huge number of animals, especially given how endangered they are.

OTOH, PETA is largely made up of idiots who think all animals are helpless human infants and many of these people firmly believe that animals are better off dead than in zoos or captive breeding programs - I remember reading some of their ranting against capturing the last few California Condors. I have nothing but contempt for such people.

[redskiedmorning.livejournal.com]

That was a darn good rant. thanks.

I personally have a lot of serious issues with the idea of keeping animals in captivity for human entertainment, but I don`t think that means that Roy "deserved" what happened to him. It happened, and it was very unfortunate. They did have an absolutely astounding safety record, too, which I think does speak well for the conditions the animals were kept in.

That said, I think people sometimes forget that tigers (and any other "exotic" pets) are wild animals. Unlike dogs and cats, they haven`t been domesticated for thousands of years and bred for desireable traits. And they are a hell of a lot bigger than any animal we would consider a pet. I have heard/watched/read a lot of stories about people who cohabit successfully with large cats (I'm partial to people who run rescue centres and refuges for "pets"), but these are still animals with all of their instincts and predelictions intact, training and handling or not. And while I can be pretty sure I can handle anything my kitten can throw at me, we all know that maltreated or just plain ornery dogs, cats, pigs, cows, birds, rats, horses, etc. can still cause a lot of damage, let alone a creature that doesn`t have generations of human interaction and influence in its blood. I don`t think Roy deserved to be attacked by the tiger, but I am not particularily surprised. I hope he recovers well.

[redskiedmorning.livejournal.com]

ps I really enjoy reading your posts. You research and provide backup and generally tend to have interesting things to say.

another viewpoint.....

[killerlidya.livejournal.com]

While I really appreciate the fact that you do see keeping wild animals in small confinement deplorable, I am saddened to realize that your view doesn't extend to atrocities committed by corporations as well as private individuals.
I'd like to respond to a few points you presented in your post.
First of all the president of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, is overly familiar with the domestic housecat, having saved a few herself, and is an amazing caretaker of those cats.
Now, on to the circus facts. I'm going to stick to tigers, being that your post is centered around the animals, and I'll try to keep it short. Tigers, having a naturally wild habitat, don't respond well to confinement. Circuses are not only unsafe for the animals in them, but tigers (as well as other animals) have unruly behavior in confinement and since 1990 circuses have been responsible for 53 human deaths, more than 180 human injuries, and 87 cats have been killed because of "danger to humans". That said, I don't know if you realize that these tigers are kept in tighter confinement than the "back room of an apartment with only 10 feet of breathing space and no one else around for company" that you mentioned as "unforgiveable". Tigers in circuses spend the majority of their time traveling in tiny little box cars in tiny little cages. In fact tigers spend over 90% of their time in these cages, the rest of their time is spent training and performing.
Training itself is no joy for the cats. I don't know if you realize that it's commonplace to burn the feet of the cats to "teach" them to perform these unnatural tricks out of fear. Yep, it definitely isn't a normal feat for a tiger to be jumping through a burning hoop of fire, so it does take some definite "prodding" to get these cats to perform. Sticks, axe handles, baseball bats, metal pipes are all also commonplace performance "tools" used to beat the animals into submission and get them to perform these disgusting "tricks". Oh, and what happens after a tiger "retires" at an obscenely young age due to the unnatrual wear that his body has been put through? Well, these tigers (seeing that they're "lucky" enough not to have already been killed or die an early death as most do) are sold to game ranches, meaning these tigers that have spent their lives working with humans are now kept in a caged in outdoor arena for hunters to shoot at close proximity. Wow, that's quite a life, isn't it? Also, the lives of any other circus animals are just as deplorable, with no animal circus escaping the sad reality of how these animals are treated, it's just accepted as commonplace. If you're interested, I'd be happy to go further into it.
Just so you know, it's not only PETA presenting these views as 15 cities have already OUTLAWED animal acts of any kind, with dozens of other cities passing laws with stipulations. However, luckily, if you're a fan of the circus there are some amazing animal-free circuses out there that are tons of fun to see and a great thing to support!

Re: another viewpoint.....

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

You are speaking of "circuses" in general. I am speaking of Siegfried and Roy. A circus that would burn a cat's feet would also surely need to remove the cat's teeth and keep it on a leash; torturing animals does not combine well with leaving them weapons and letting them wander around unrestrained. If you want me to believe that Siegfried and Roy abused their cats you'll have to find me some proof of it somewhere, because otherwise I do not believe it.

not to be flip...

[fflo.livejournal.com]

In another vein entirely, I have to confess to a certain sympathy with this confessional post on the subject of the attack by crankyasanoldma. It got a flurry of short responses, some funny and some right-on (I thought)---and some with great user icons.

The aspect of the story that I find somehow both chuckle-worthy and philosophically compelling comes from what S. & R. are culturally for us---how singular they are for this over-the-top act that would be campy if it weren't so sincere. Just referring to them by name has long been kind of a one-liner joke---shorthand for a particularly out-there glitzy (and closet-y) version of Vegas Big Time pap that dazzles middle America. (I'm from Kansas, so I can say that?) Thus it's hard to match that up with a serious injury and serious animal rights issues, at least if you wouldn't necessarily have thought of their act from the animal rights angle before. And, I admit, I hadn't. So, all of a sudden to think/speak of these caricatures and goofy cultural icons as the real people they are seems to me to be called for, sure, yet forced, or imposed by propriety, or something phony-feeling like that.

Their place in culture/commercialism means, for me, that to have sincere heart-felt sympathy for this seriously injured fellow human being is to regard him as something other than his stage persona, to make him a man called Roy Horn, not the shiny-outfitted performer who, talented though he may be, is half of a big joke.

[giza.livejournal.com]

*bites PETA on the neck and drags them offstage...*

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Ha! ;-)

[giza.livejournal.com]

Oh, I found a picture of Roy getting mauled by the tiger!

[(Anonymous)]

LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO@ABOVE PIC