petcareawareness:

chinon:

mytoeispi:

@chinon there any big cats that would be good pets? asking about the cats health and development, not cost.

nope not at all theyre dangerous wild predators with millions of years of instincts ingrained into their beings. no theyre not mindless killers but they are extremely dangerous and can kill even in play; all it takes is a swipe of the paw to the head and youre done. as for the small cats, theyre less likely to kill you obviously but they can still injure you quite badly

people see cute videos of big cats acting like cats and theyre like “aww look its just like my cat” and shit like that when no its not at all like your house cat. this leads to the inherently cruel and abusive cub petting/pay-to-play schemes bc people think theyre fun and friendly and playful just like their cat at home so they visit these facilities that offer the experience to take pictures and/or play with the cats, which leads to both people and cats getting injured or killed. im way off topic here lmao i get carried away easily with this stuff so i digress….also wild cats mark and their pee is horrid and extremely strong and you cant get it out of anything so theres that too

and good luck trying to find a vet to care for the wild cat lmao regular exotic vets that treat pet birds/reptiles/etc are hard enough to find so imagine trying to find one that will treat a big cat

and finally i think the most important point is that the wild cat would most likely have to come from the illegal wildlife trade. these arent animals you can just find outside and decide to take in and you cant find them at animal shelters. you get them from breeders and all these breeders care about is their profit. they dont breed with the animals best interest in mind at all. this is strictly business, which leads to inbred and sickly animals which youd then need to take to a vet but there are none so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

but the most important point of all is that all 37 species of wild cat are on the brink of extinction and both the wildlife trade and people promoting unprotected contact and thus romanticizing and furthering the “cuddly, just like my cat at home” notions are contributing to their extinction whether directly or indirectly. the wrong ideas are being spread which has lead to and allowed places like tiger temple, tiger kingdom, TIGERS myrtle beach safari, gw exotics, bjwt, and many more facilities to flourish bc people want to touch big cats when what we need to be doing is protecting and saving them. when theyre not part of a breeding program such as the ssp (species survival plan) managed by mostly aza facilities, the big cats (such as tigers) are generic/“mutts” (with the tiger example, there are six extant subspecies, and breeders dont care about conservation or subspecies so they mix them up causing the tigers to be generic tigers bc their genetics arent pure for a specific subspecies) and “mutts” have zero conservation value. none of the “pet” big cats have any conservation value. they exist solely bc of human greed, and human greed is whats making them go extinct

big cats arent pets and theyll never be pets. they make horrible pets just bc they simply arent. people buy these baby wild cats from breeders bc they think its cool and itll be a cool pet when in reality the majority of “pet” wild cats either live horrible lives neglected in people’s backyards or they get surrendered to big cat sanctuaries bc people get the cub/kitten bc it’s cute but then it gets bigger and starts marking and starts biting/scratching and starts destroying furniture and suddenly its a liability bc its a wild animal and this is why sanctuaries have to turn so many away bc theyre overflowing and dont have the space nor the funds to take in more animals no matter how much they want to so the animal either stays neglected in the persons backyard or gets euthanized one way or another, all bc someone thought a tiger would make a cool pet bc they thought it would be cute and cuddly bc they saw a video of some guy playing with a tiger and they wanted to be like that

this is honestly all over the place lmao but as you can see there are many reasons why big cats make horrible pets

tldr

• they can and will kill you, even by accident
• their piss
• not only is this a welfare problem (abused, neglected animals), but this is also a problem regarding conservation bc the 37 species of wild cats are going extinct at alarming rates and we need to be focusing on their survival instead of our greed and fantasies of “befriending” apex predators

thats all i got rn but i’d like to phone a friend lmao janine @neofeliis would you add anything to this? also i have a side blog @panthxra which has hella links and resources on private ownership (i have a tag specifically for that) and so does janines side blog @bigcatawareness so

Just a reminder to never keep big cats no matter how adorable they are. Appreciate them from afar, and leave the husbandry to professionals.

Unless you’re an ultra-rich person who can build a small zoo in their backyard, hire actual zookeepers, and otherwise keep a big cat as a hands-off, observation-only “pet”, big cats are awful, awful pets. If you are that rich, please put the money into conservation programs instead.