Big cats: wild animals or domestic pets?

Leo the lion. Photo credit: The Roar Foundation.

It all began with a lion named Dandelion. The year was 1969 and Tippi Hedren was filming Satan’s Harvest in Africa. It was here that the film actress, who is best known for her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds, first met the big cat and since that time, she has devoted her life to wild animals.

After returning to the United States, Tippi became deeply involved with international conservation groups to save wildlife and today, she regularly speaks out against cruelty to animals, both wild and domestic.

Her most unique endeavor, however, is as “den mother” to nearly 70 big cats—lions, tigers, leopards, cougars, and servals—at the Shambala Preserve, an organization she founded in 1972 after co-producing and starring in the motion picture, Roar with her daughter, film actress Melanie Griffith.

Tucked into the mountains of the Mohave Desert just 40 miles northeast of Los Angeles, the wild animal preserve—which now goes by the name of The Roar Foundation’s Shambala Preserve—is home to both felines and pachyderms who, for various reasons, cannot live in the wild. Most of the animals come to Shambala from abusive situations. Many have endured lives in zoos and circuses, or as domestic pets. They’re often declawed, defanged, malnourished, and mistreated.

There’s Leo, an African lion who was found living in the basement of a house outside Branson, Missouri. And Patrick, the “liger” (half lion, half tiger hybrid) whose cage in a private zoo was so small that he lost all muscle tone in his hindquarters and back legs. And there’s Boo, whose scary name is nothing compared to his frightful background: the leopard cub was bought as a pet from a breeder in Texas. As he grew, he began to shred his “family’s” fancy furniture, so he was banished to a closet, where he lived until his rescue and relocation to Shambala. (Incidentally, the “family” transported Boo to the preserve in a zippered bag they had placed in the trunk of their car.) Kara, a leopard, was found living in an unheated garage in Wyoming in the dead of winter, with no food or water, and suffering from frost-bitten ears, paws, and tail. And then there’s Tamara, the tiger cub who was being sold out of the back of a station wagon at a Southern California shopping mall. Some of the rescued big cats were used as “watch dogs” for drug dealers.

Tippi has been an animal lover since birth—a “birth effect”—she quipped during a recent noon-time Animal Law Society lecture on the UCLA campus. As attendees munched on vegan sandwiches and “chicken” tenders, the petite blonde regaled us with tales of her life’s work and her frustration with the lack of federal laws that prohibit private citizens from owning exotic animals.

“In most states, it’s more difficult to get a license for your dog than it is to buy a big cat,” Tippi lamented. “Right now, there are more tigers in the state of Texas than in all of India.”

Lucrative “canned hunts” are the reason for the large number of tigers in Texas and other states. These operations, also known as “shooting preserves” or “game ranches,” are private trophy hunting facilities that offer “hunters” the opportunity to kill captive, exotic animals. The animals—many of whom have been hand-raised and bottle fed, so they have lost their natural fear of people—are trapped in a fenced area and are often drugged, so even the clumsiest customer is guaranteed a kill. If that weren’t bad enough, some facilities even allow their clients to shoot an animal remotely via the Internet. (Grrrrs…)

Never one to tiptoe around important issues, Tippi has testified in Washington in favor of legislation banning canned hunts and the sale of exotic animals to private parties. She was instrumental in gaining support for the Shambala Wildlife Protection Act (2000) as well as the Captive Wildlife Safety Act (2003), which outlaws the interstate transport of big cats for the pet trade. Most recently, she is working on a federal bill that will amend the Animal Welfare Act. Known as “The Federal Ban on the Breeding of the Exotic Felines for Personal Possession Act,” the bill will ban the breeding, selling, and trading of exotic animals. (Purrs…)

Through her advocacy work, Tippi has proven that big cats are predators, not pussycats and as such, they should never be subjected to life as someone’s pet or used as a person’s pathetic attempt to prove his manhood with a gun and a pocketful of cash. It’s tragic for the cats and dangerous for people.

Since 1990, there have been nearly 700 big cat attacks. One such attack occurred in 2003 when a 10-year-old boy from North Carolina was mauled to death by his aunt’s 400-pound tiger. And who can forget the three boys who were attacked (one was killed) by a Siberian tiger at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day 2007. Or the 600-pound tiger who severely injured legendary Las Vegas performer Roy Horn? Even Shambala isn’t immune to problems. In December 2007, a caretaker received multiple scratches and a bite to the neck by a Bengal tiger named Alexander.

Even with the hundreds of reports of big cat attacks, Tippi is quick to remind us that it’s people, not the cats, who are the real predators. “It’s not usually the animals you need to worry about; it’s the humans,” she said. “It’s always our fault. We put them here.”

For more info:  To learn more about Shambala and The Roar Foundation, visit their Web site at www.shambala.org.