If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work with big cats, WTOP has a new interview with Charlie Shaw, a big cat keeper at the Smithsonian National Zoo.
Hint: it involves a lot of meat, physical enrichment, olfactory enrichment, and checking on the felids to make sure they’re healthy.
Shaw starts his day by feeding the hungry apex predators, including Damai, a 16-year-old tiger who wants all the snacks, and Vostok, a fast-growing young Amur tiger who doesn’t know a genetically-compatible mate is arriving in short order, and he’ll get to be a dad if things go well.
The genetic matches are carefully made to avoid inbreeding and give the species the best chance to recover.
“Tigers are critically endangered,” Shaw told WTOP. “What we want to do is make sure the gene pool itself is still very diverse.”
Shaw says he’s working his dream job.
“You walk in and the tigers all chuff at you, or the lions roar. And you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, this is my job every day!’”
THAT story
I’m aware of it, and I think every person concerned about the welfare of cats should at least know it’s happening.
But it’s also extremely distressing. I actually had nightmares the night after I read it. So I’m offering a strong warning here: think about it before you click the story. The report is by CNN, so there are no gory images and the reporters aren’t trying to make anyone uncomfortable, but the reality of it is bad enough.
For everyone who doesn’t want to know the more upsetting details, the essence of it is that there’s a network of people making “content” of themselves torturing and killing cats, and a rapidly growing audience of people who pay thousands of dollars to “sponsor” the horrific content.
They have “menus” set up where people can select the cat they want to see tortured and specify the ways in which the cat should be hurt and killed. CNN, citing a group of vigilantes trying to dismantle the networks, says people pay up to $1,300 for the “service.” Collectively, the torturers and their audience refer to themselves as “cat lovers.”
The Chinese government, to no one’s surprise, does not care. There are no criminal penalties for what the content producers are doing, and the government hasn’t responded to complaints from concerned people or media networks.
I might address it in the future, but for now I don’t even know what to say. I was away when I read it, and it made me really want to hug Bud and make sure he’s never out of my care. Ever.
Pain In The Bud 
That would of been my dream job. Se ond story? EFFING NIGHTMARE AND DISGUSTING.
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The like is for the big cat keeper story, 😎 cool! Can’t handle clicking on that other one. Humans can sink so low.
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Yeah, it’s probably for the best to avoid the details. I wasn’t joking when I said I had nightmares. I was away and all I wanted to do was come back and hug Bud.
Great photos of handsome Silver on your post BTW. People like you and your husband are the true counterbalance to the evil in this world, making all the difference for the strays who are fortunate enough to find you.
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Second that.
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Like I said, cats are in the cross-hairs right now…the World is full of sick individuals who should do the rest of us a favor and frickin’ die already.
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I can’t even process how people can be so cruel. Our species is a stain on the planet, and we’ll probably Darwin Award ourselves out after we march almost every other species to extinction.
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I am sure you heard about crush videos. Don’t care what anyone thinks when i say i wish these vermin would die a horrific death.
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Yes. The things described in this story are so much worse, unfortunately.
The Chinese government may not care about animal abuse, but they do care about “losing face” and being embarrassed, and that’s probably the only thing that would prompt a crackdown.
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Let’s hope so. We’ve had our chance and wrecked it.
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🖕🖕🖕🖕to the Chinese govermnent. The young Chinese animal activists of today do thier best regarding any form of animal abuse but how much can they really accomplish with that kind of government? Kudos to them for caring and trying.
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Yeah there’s definitely a generational shift in attitudes. Last year there was a great story about a woman in China whose cat was stolen either to resell or to sell to restaurants. She went to extraordinary lengths to find him and has been raising hell with the authorities.
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Re: That story. It’s beyond belief how many sadistic freaks there are. Maybe I’m naive but it never occurred to me that people would choose how to torture a specific cat until death for money. Jesus wept! Is no one concerned that these freaks might want to up the stakes and replace a human being for the cat?
While I have nothing against the Chinese people who are at the mercy of their government I do avoid products from China as much as possible.
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I make a distinction between the people and the government, and while I understand and appreciate the fact that there are young people in China who know this sort of thing is deeply wrong and are fighting it, I also think there’s something fundamentally broken in that society and it’s the result of a total disregard for life of all kinds, human and animal.
When you devalue life, this is what you get.
People who would counter that we are no better with our factory farming aren’t wrong, although FF is heavily abstracted and our society goes to great lengths to separate food consumption from the horrible reality of how the animals are treated, while there is nothing abstract about torturing animals for “fun.” That doesn’t make one any less horrible than the other.
I also avoid products from China, because you don’t know if they’re made by Uyghur slaves, people locked in factories for 18 hours a day, children, etc. The American addiction to cheap electronics and other stuff manufactured in China is also part of the destructive, unsustainable consumer culture in the US.
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Going in to work with lions and tigers every day would be a huge step up from what I’m doing now. I really don’t understand the way some people use the Internet. Those videos are horrifying, and I don’t understand the minds of those do it or those who watch it.
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