"Tigers are endangered in Asia, but in Texas they're backyard pets"

https://www.mystatesman.com/news/local/tigers-are-endangered-asia-but-texas-they-backyard-pets/x8iYTDZ1UZ6mmTK5TfhrsM/

Texas is home to roughly 2,000 tigers

More Tigers in the US (~5,000) than there are in the wild (3,000 to 4,500)

The article talks as if this private ownership is a bad thing. What if this wasn't a bad thing and actually saved the natural wild population?

valtosca said:

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"Tigers are endangered in Asia, but in Texas they're backyard pets"

https://www.mystatesman.com/news/local/tigers-are-endangered-asia-but-texas-they-backyard-pets/x8iYTDZ1UZ6mmTK5TfhrsM/

Texas is home to roughly 2,000 tigers

More Tigers in the US (~5,000) than there are in the wild (3,000 to 4,500)

The article talks as if this private ownership is a bad thing. What this wasn't a bad thing and actually saved the natural wild population?

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Private ownership does nothing for wild population. At all.

And it's not always rich dudes in mansions with private caretakers for their lions. But often country bumpkins and everything in between who don't have adequate knowledge, resources, or space for them. It's a real bad life for a lot of them.

Plus, private ownership of exotics in general leads to some of the more foul practices of humankind. Forced breeding, illegal captures, hellish transportation measures, etc. It's a crap "industry" I wouldn't mind see go away.

And private ownership should not be looked at as the new conservation method. That is such a stretch it is laughable.

Have you ever had to deal with a potentially loose tiger, or more specifically the PR surrounding it? It sucks. Private collection tigers do nothing on a bigger scale for wild populations. Pretty easy to argue mostly a negative.

After the magician got injured, I had to babysit a dead tiger waiting on the Ag guys to get there and take custody of it. Someone had shot it and left it just off the highway south of Dallas. The cable around its neck was pretty well permanently embedded in the skin.

For the record, I'm honestly just asking. I have business degrees and sell Real Estate. I honestly didn't have a pre-conceived opinion when I posted the article. I am truly asking for the sake of learning and discussion.

Not sure which is worse: idiots in Texas who own tigers as a hobby or chinamen who poach tigers for their dicks to make some quack ancient medicine.

I guess at least hobbyists value tiger life.

Tigers are one of the cooler animals on this planet, and anyone who mistreats them is a p.o.s. in my book.

It would be a better world if we had more tigers and fewer humans.

It's a reserve of genetic diversity should the wild population take a big hit. I think people who keep big predators like that should be required to meet certain containment requirements regarding facilities.

I've only seen one tiger cage on a ranch. It was probably 20 yards wide and 80 yards long.

Quote:

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A tiger's home range size can vary a lot depending on the place you're looking at. One study in Thailand found that male tigers' ranges were around 267294 km and female's ranges were around 7084 km7. But a study in Bangladesh found that a couple females had an average home range of 14.2 km2, which is much smaller.

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Crap like this is why private ownership does virtually nothing positive for wild tiger population. There are plenty in zoos for genetics purposes.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/05/01/border-patrol-rescues-tiger-cub-after-3-illegal-immigrants-try-to-enter-us.html

It is just crazy how many of the big cats are in Texas.

We did a daddy/daughter weekend with my daughters 4th grade class last weekend and took the girls to the cat rescue just outside of Tyler. Lots of crazy stories from those guys on the situation.

http://tigercreek.org/

ursusguy said:

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Crap like this is why private ownership does virtually nothing positive for wild tiger population. There are plenty in zoos for genetics purposes.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/05/01/border-patrol-rescues-tiger-cub-after-3-illegal-immigrants-try-to-enter-us.html

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Stuff like this is exactly what I am talking about.

Humans as stewards of the land and wildlife? Pffft. We destroy everything we touch. Usually in a long drawn out and painful process.

Texas has more Scimitar Horned Oryx than all of Africa combined. Exotic ranchers brought that species back from the brink. But it didn't stop FWS from listing the species as "endangered" which led to a large-scale culling in 2013-14 before the regs took effect. So you can think the federal gov't for directly eliminating thousands of "endangered" animals.

At one point a group of exotic ranchers tried to plan a shipment back to Africa to re-populate & and no one there wanted them...