The fact that I don’t like cats is not a secret. But big cats are different. I love leopards, cheetahs, and lynxes. I used to love that show “Big Cat Diaries”. When I was little I would always say that one day I would have a pet leopard.
Now that I am an adult, I don’t understand why anyone would think that they could keep a non-domesticated cat as a pet. Perhaps they want to feel like they have something unique and interesting or maybe they just like the way the cats look. But that still doesn’t make it ok.
Wild cats are not the same as household cats. Sure, you can think that if you raise them from birth they will fit right in, but their natural tendencies will always be there. They are predators and that makes them a threat. What makes it worse is when someone gets hurt. Or when the cat gets too big and aggressive and the owner doesn’t know what to do with him.
I remember a few years ago when a man had a pet tiger in his apartment. Just thinking about it stuns me- this man had a 400 pound tiger in his apartment! Of course the tiger eventually bit him and that’s how it was discovered. This man also had a 3 foot caiman (think alligator) there as well.
According to the exotic pets site on About.com, there are around 10,000 to 15,000 tigers now kept as pets or in private facilities in the US which means that there are only about 5,000 left in the wild.
There are more tigers in people’s homes than there are in the wild? That is ridiculous. This is a (somewhat) free country so I guess people have a right to choose what pets they want, but I know that most of these animals are kept illegally. After all, many places have laws against having these sorts of animals.