On July 28, a man climbed over a barrier to get closer to a 12-year-old jaguar named Harry at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in Florida. The waist-high wooden barrier was meant to provide a greater distance between the jaguar enclosure perimeter and the general public to avoid any unsafe interactions. This particular visitor, however, had a different idea about the barrier and viewed it as an opportunity to get closer to the enormous cat instead.
The man was rushed to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after Harry swiped at him with his massive paw and 4-inch claws. After the incident, other visitors noted zoo employees cleaning up a pool of blood where the attack occurred. While the zoo is not pressing charges, the zoo director stated that the outcome may have been substantially more severe if Harry had latched onto the man. Apparently, this was the first dangerous incident at this exhibit in the ten years since it opened.
Jaguars are the largest felines in the Americas. Adult males can grow up to seven feet long and weigh up to 200 pounds. Jaguars are strictly carnivores and hunt by pouncing on their prey and piercing the skull with their canine teeth. They can bite clean through an adult crocodile skull. Despite the obvious dangers posed by their expertly evolved skills, including stellar strength and hunting precision, numerous facilities across the United States continue to allow risky public interactions and feature shows with big cats, including jaguars, panthers, mountain lions, tigers, cheetahs, and lions, while keeping the animals under the unnatural restraints of captivity.
In June, the Bremer County Fair in Waverly, Iowa, displayed a tiger show featuring two Bengal tigers and one white lion performing ‘naturalistic’ behaviors for an audience. Despite the big cat handlers preaching that these shows support wildlife conservation, the bleak reality remains that these shows continue to detract from beneficial conservation efforts by valuing (dangerous) entertainment over real population management resources.
How can we expect the public to respect wild animals’ personal space if we constantly expose them to ‘professionals’ violating this same space and the animals’ right to live in a natural environment?
In an interview at the fairgrounds, one of the tiger handlers stated that her family has been training tigers for nine generations and her grandfather was the director at the Peoria Zoo in Illinois for several years. She also revealed that she raises the tigers in her own house and sleeps with them in her bed until they are several months old. She then proceeded to show the news reporter a three-month-old tiger by walking her on a leash. How can we expect the public to respect wild animals’ personal space if we constantly expose them to ‘professionals’ violating this same space and the animals’ right to live in a natural environment?
Wild jaguars were hunted nearly to extinction in the southwestern United States for their pelts via commercial hunting and trapping in the mid-1900s. The IUCN classifies their wild population status as Near Threatened with a Decreasing population trend throughout their North, Central, and South American ranges. The main threats jaguars currently face include illegal wildlife trafficking, habitat destruction, and being shot by ranchers as a form of ‘pest control’ due to their perception as a threat to livestock.
Perhaps least mentioned are the damaging threats posed by big cat handlers and owners. Just reintroduced to congress this year, the Big Cat Public Safety Act would help to significantly reduce these unsafe interactions and exhibitions that generate money that goes directly into these individuals’ pockets and instead promote a public mindset that is conducive to real conservation efforts.
Show your support for these big cats and improving public safety today by contacting your local lawmaker to pass this important bill!
Speak Out for Big Cats!
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Devan