photo by Monique Doorduin (Wikimedia Commons)

Recently on the Internets I have noticed a surge in videos of white people playing with big wild animals as if they were harmless house pets.

I don’t know what it is all about, but some intrepid, extremely confident individuals think they can just play with huge lions, tigers, cheetahs and panthers and believe they will not get eaten.

Did they not see Grizzly Man? Not hear of Siegfried and Roy? Ok, it might be going well so far, but when will they wrestle with one hyena or leopard too many and suddenly find themselves being disemboweled by a powerful (though admittedly very cuddly-looking) predator?

For their sake I hope never. For one it would most likely lead to less videos on YouTube of wealthy South Africans horsing around with cute killing machines. And obviously, we all love those.

Let’s see some, shall we?

Zoologist/animal behaviorist Kevin Richardson is brave and amazing. He tumbles and takes naps with powerful and dangerous beasts of the African plains and has only emerged with a few cuts and bruises. He just likes it so much that he is willing to take the risk.

Check out the following video of Kevin playing with some lions as if he was himself a creature of the African savannah – which he is in fact, if you believe in evolution.

Here is another a popular video of conservationist Marlice van Vuuren teasing cheetahs while wearing short shorts. Marlice has opened a free clinic and operates an animal sanctuary in Namibia. She seems like a great person and all, but I can’t help but think that she is just asking for a good and proper disemboweling. This in no way means that I think it’s “OK” for cheetahs, lions, tigers or any other large predator to disembowel an attractive woman just because she is dressed in revealing clothing. It is NOT.

lead image credit: Wikimedia Commons; author: Kevin Richardson

photo by Tambako the Jaguar (Flickr CC)

On Tuesday night an exotic wild animal collector let loose 56 animals in Muskingum county, Ohio, a rural area of the United States. The collector, who has been identified as Terry Thompson, owner of Muskingum County Animal Farm, then killed himself.

The drama that followed the animals release boiled down to police hunting down and killing the animals, including tigers and lions, for fear that they would attack people.

From the Guardian:

Animal bodies were seen scattered near a barn on the game preserve, and they were later buried there […] The preserve also had cheetahs, wolves, giraffes, camels and grizzly bears, among others.

Conservationist/celebrity wildlife expert Jack Hanna believes deadly force was necessary to deal with the situation and that tranquillizer darts would not have been an adequate safety measure when so many dangerous animals were on the loose at once.

From CNN:

As of Wednesday afternoon, authorities had killed 49 animals — 18 tigers, 17 lions, six black bears, two grizzly bears, three mountain lions, two wolves and a baboon. Those captured alive were taken to the Columbus Zoo.

The appropriateness of the emergency measures can be debated, but the fact that people can buy and sell exotic wild animals to profit or feed their own vanity is something that should be closely examined. This is not just the root of this particular incident, but also of a cruel and ignorant worldwide trade in wild animals, which are then used as tacky living trophies or as ingredients in bogus traditional medicines.

It is a shocking and often repeated statistic that there are more captive tigers in the US state of Texas than there are wild tigers in the entire world.

There is also a growing trade in baby gorillas, probably fuelled by rich idiots who want a cute and rare pet.

Ban the trade in wild, exotic animals and punish those who participate in it. Yes, keeping lions, tigers and bears is potentially dangerous to humans, but it is undeniably dangerous to the animals themselves, as this one instance in Ohio, resulting in 49 dead, innocent animals clearly demonstrates.