3 burly men in a tug-of-war with lioness and it is animal abuse

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

Lion in tug-of-war with 3 burly men at a zoo is not good. Image: 2 screenshots knitted together by MikeB

The tweet says it nicely: “Making fun of animals in captivity is not entertainment”. The lioness is impressive in holding her own against three burly men in a tug-of-war but this is not the decent thing to do. You can see that this happens all the time, perhaps daily as the machinery is in place. It is exploitative. The human M.O. is to first keep a lion captive in a zoo which is already, as far as I am concerned, cruel and then to mess around with her to entertain the public. Not good as far as I am concerned. It may injure the lion over time. Lions are not meant to play tug of war. It might damage her teeth in time.

The general tone of the ‘fun’ is that the lion is being used as entertainment which brings me to PETA’s motto: Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way. Note the word ‘entertainment’. I support PETA but not all animal advocates do. They make an impact and that is needed.

Big cats have been exploited for entertainment for centuries it seems. Circuses come to mind. Animals in circuses are being phased out and 27 countries ban animals in circuses. There are 195 countries. A long way to go. Although some countries won’t have circuses but they may have something similar.

I wonder if the human’s desire to exploit and belittle lions is because of our arrogance. We don’t like being upstaged by an animal which is more impressive than us. It is also why too many idiots like to shoot them. The more impressive the animal to more fun it is to kill them. Humans hate successful animals. They make us feel inadequate and vulnerable. Humans also hate ‘pests’ such as pigeons just because they are as good at surviving as humans.

South Africa exploits lions. Horrible. The mentality is alien to me.