[drewprops]

Last night I finished watching a documentary about animal trafficking in the United States.

There is a network of people who quietly trade in exotic animals, from birds and reptiles to big cats. There appears to be a common theme of mental and criminal derangement in most of these people, many living on the edge of the law.

Some of them operate "zoos" (in name only) where they charge large sums to visitors, who eagerly pay to have up-close encounters with wild animals. Some of these "zoo" operators manipulate young adults into sexual relationships, while others leverage the goodwill of the animal-loving public to operate "refuges".

The animals are bred for captivity, used for self-promotion, and often euthanized when they outlive their usefulness.

I do not recommend that you watch this documentary or donate money to any people like this.


...

[kscherer]

There used to be one of those "zoos" here in Boise*. The owners had several baby tigers they rented out for shows. In fact, the founder of our company (MacLife) hired them to bring the cubs to the Mac OS 10.4 "Tiger" release party that we had. We invited food trucks, the radio station, and actual, real tigers! it was awesome.

Later that year I took my daughter to the "zoo" where we got to stand just on the other side of a chainlink fence from the big, adult tigers and some kind of funky looking bear. The tour guide (this guy's young daughter) leaned against the chainlink fence and the bear grabbed for her, got hold of her coat, and nearly ripped it off her. That was fun to watch!

A few years later the place was shut down because of some reason or other. I can't find the news link, but I know it's been at least 10 years ago. It was fun to tour, and those baby tiger cubs were super awesome, but it seems to me the dude wasn't taking the best care of the animals. Although he did have a license to operate, so it wasn't an "illegal" operation. Just an "operation" … or something.

*Actually, I think it was Nampa, but you know how that whole "metropolitan" thing works, right?