Hello, it’s me again…  The former General Manager for Great Cats World Park of Southern Oregon.

I have been busy getting settled into New Zealand and trying to secure a lucrative online job.  Half of that is going well.

Due to some recurring crap on a FB travel forum, I’d like to have a discussion about animal rights versus animal welfare.  

Animal cruelty is a hot-button issue all over the internet, and the first thing I’d like to highlight is why animal cruelty situations have seen such a spike in recent years.  

Well, actually they haven’t.  

In this day and age when everyone is carrying a phone that takes crisp, clear video footage, why are so many of the videos online shaky and grainy?  Most of that is old footage recycled for a new campaign, and most of the time the images and the descriptions don’t match.  A great example of this is the anti-white tiger campaign that is still exploiting “Kenny”, a tiger who has been dead for years, as supposed proof that all white tigers are inbred mongrels.  Another example is a video circulating that supposedly shows a man from the US company, “Have Trunk, Will Travel” beating one of their elephants.  I can assure you the man in the video is neither Bill nor his son because I’ve known them for 20+ years and they’re both bald.  Dude in the video has a pony tail.

PETA, Humane Society of the United States, Big Cat Rescue, The Dodo, and other such organizations understand how to pull on the sucker strings of the general public.  They make a video with the intention that it will go viral and make them money.  Internet videos are for marketing.  I’m going to say that one more time…  Anyone who posts pictures or video of an animal being tortured is more interested in manipulating your feelings than they are about the animals.  HSUS never saves a single one of the sad puppies you see in their advertisements; they just want your money.

Now please understand that animal cruelty and exploitation for profit are real things.  However, pledging to never visit another zoo is punishing people and animals for atrocities they didn’t commit, and may hurt programs that are trying to help what’s left of the wild population.

The next thing I’d like to highlight is that animal exploitation for profit is not necessarily cruel to the animals.  Yeah, that’s a hard one to get your head around.  Just like horses and dogs, elephants have a very long history of working alongside man, and they do not have to be beaten, deprived, or otherwise acclimated in order to carry a human safely.  A bull hook, when properly used, does not hurt at all.  It simply helps give direction.
Every big cat in every facility in the world has at some point been separated from its mother.  Just like the ones in the wild.  Why? Because if they aren’t given their own space, they will likely either kill or breed each other.  They have no instinct for familial recognition because they’re *Predators*.  Once mom is away from her babies, be they two weeks old or two years old, she comes back into heat.  It’s how they’re programmed for survival in the wild.

Whether you are an advocate for animal rights or animal welfare depends on how you feel about animals in captivity.  If you believe that captive wildlife should be provided a clean and comfortable environment, that breeding programs are essential to future generations, that it is possible for a keeper to develop a bond with a wild animal, that zoos are important for research and education, that horses can be ethically owned and ridden, and the family dog is family, your stance is more toward animal welfare.

If you believe that all forms of captivity are cruel, including wildlife rehabilitation, that hand raising of cubs is wrong for any reason, that people can learn everything they need to know about animals from books and the internet, that wild animals should be found only in the wild, and never in cages, and they should never be kept as pets or a source of food, or as a resource for the benefit of humans, then you side more with the animal rights activists.

Most of us fall somewhere in between, which means most of us are hypocrites to some degree.  Yes, that’s right, I said it.  And I’m guilty of it, too.  

Whichever side of the issue resonates best with your beliefs, please remember that BOTH sides are about the continued well-being of wildlife.  If you want to help further your cause, spend your energy by getting out and doing something.  Go start a recycling program, or a fund raiser to buy back a few acres of habitat.

Shaming people on the internet just makes you an asshole, and sharing tawdry video footage just makes more money for lobbyists.  Neither action has ever helped a single animal.