![]() ![]() I was expecting a cub that was much smaller in size. This time their Syrian brown bear cub was ready for “special touching and petting”. But if you take away the ‘pet and play’ experience all you get is a sad depressing zoo with animals that are not enriched, suffering from neglect and are housed in inadequate enclosures.Īfter the jaguar cub was done being on display and 10-15 minutes had passed, another announcement came blaring over the intercom. To bring the public in and make them excited about touching an exotic animal. These cubs are taken from their mothers for one thing and one thing only, to make money. A question was asked where his mom was and her answer was that she was at a zoo somewhere and he was pulled for outreach and education. As I recorded everyone happily walking in and petting the cub, the trainer is constantly talking, I'm assuming so she does not get any hard questions from the public. This cub was big, big enough to really hurt someone if he decided he didn’t want to be handled or pet anymore. This cub was 5 months old… before the Big Cat Public Safety Act was even passed the legal age for a cub to be pet and handled by the public was no older than 12 weeks of age (3 months). The cub was “trained” to sit on a wood stump and be bottle fed by its trainer while the public could come up from behind the cat and pet it along its back. The keeper holding his chain went to talk about how he is the first black jaguar cub that the park has ever had in their last 50 years of doing this. We followed this small crowd over to their gazebo area where the black jaguar cub eventually came out pulling on a chain ready to play with the audience. Their black jaguar cub was ready for “special touching and petting”. They are most likely being sold to private owners or breeders to continue this inhumane cycle.Īs we continued into the park, an ear wrenching announcement came over the annoyingly loud intercom…. They should have a lot older cats if they are caring for them properly. Again they have been doing this for over fifty years…. But when they get too old or need to bring in more babies to “play” with the public, where do the older cats go? The cats we saw on display included a caracal, 2 Siberian lynx, 1 female lion, 2 male lions, 1 tiger, 1 spotted leopard, 1 black leopard, and 1 black jaguar cub. ![]() These cats that were housed on display were most definitely their ‘pet and play’ cats at the beginning of their stay here at the game park…. You may not think anything of that, but big cats in captivity can live from 15-20 years. All the cats that were on display that we saw were of younger age between 1-6 years old. Their enclosures were laid with gravel and cement, The male lion was in an enclosure that seemed to be made to house arboreal cats, with a lot of vertical space and little ground space. A male lion, black leopard, and spotted leopard. Allowing the public to stick their fingers in again and possibly get bit, or worse injure an animal.Īs we walked further into the park the first thing that caught my eye was 3 pacing big cats…. Next to the fox, capybara, wallaby, and emu were housed with direct access to the enclosure fen ce line. The first thing we noticed were 3 red foxes, their enclosures were too small to be living in and the public have direct access to their mesh, allowing anyone to put fingers and hands into their enclosure. When we walked in we were greeted by hungry deer and livestock. It was shocking to hear that these animals would be subjected to interactions with the public EVERY 30 minutes. I asked what time they were going to be coming out for those interactions….she told me EVERY 30 min. ![]() West Coast Game Park has continued to allow the public to interact and ‘pet and play‘ with big cat cubs along with other species at the park, so we decided to see for ourselves.Īs soon as we walked in to pay we were greeted by a lady at the front desk, without hesitation the first words out of her mouth were that their animal interactions for today were going to be a Black Jaguar cub and Syrian Brown Bear cub. ![]() Now that the Big Cat Public Safety act has passed, it is now illegal for exhibitors to allow direct contact with cubs. Not to enjoy a good time or vacation but to get some important information and footage of the parks now illegal activities of exploiting big cats. This past weekend me and Chris had the opportunity to drive down to Bandon, OR and go to West Coast Game Park Safari. Visiting West Coast Game Park An Investigative Report by Tiffany Lopez, WCR Operations manager ![]()
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