Have you ever thought about what happens to lion cubs after they have been cuddled and posed for a picture?
They are placed in small cages and must stay in their faeces, says the Bloemfontein SPCA.
Lion cubs need more than 18 hours of sleep a day. This helps the cubs develop strong muscles and healthy bones. When cuddling a cub, the cub doesn’t get the chance to develop. These animals are also not domestic animals and are removed from their mothers at the tender age of only two weeks!
They can’t get the sleep they need while being handled and being used for entertainment. Furthermore, these cubs are very sensitive to diseases and can easily contract diseases from domestic pets, humans, and the other way around.
The Bloemfontein SPCA recently visited farms that do cub petting, and they say none of these farms have good husbandry measures in place, nor any clean enclosures for the cubs. “Piles and piles of feaces fill the inside of the cage where the cubs are held. The cubs also have a low immune system as they were deprived of their mother’s milk or special predator milk. They are given dairy milk, which is not suitable for lion cubs. Lion breeders prefer doing this as it is cheaper than buying predator milk.
“Up to 10 cubs are forced to live in a cage, not even suitable for chickens.
“Dirty cages lead to fly infestations, and the cubs have severe flystrike to such a degree that they suffer from bleeding ears.
“The owners of these facilities do not care about the welfare of the lion cubs. The cubs are a money spinner, reeling funds to breed more lions for the lion bone trade and trophy hunting.”
While inspecting these farms, the SPCA says they found cubs with no water, no shelter, and no proper food. They also found that some cubs had to eat decomposing chickens.
“The future of the cubs is decided for them by the owner. When they are too big to be cuddled, they are being raised on the basic minimum standards of animal welfare, if they are that fortunate. The owners will give food when they receive donated food and do not regularly provide water. for them When the cubs are adult lions, they will be used for trophy hunting and after being hunted, slaughtered for their bones.”
Bloemfontein SPCA continues to do inspections at lion farms. While they conducted multiple lion farm inspections, they issued warnings at every single farm as they all had welfare concerns for all the lions. In other cases contraventions of the Animals Protection Act Nr 71 of 1962 were noticed. Cases of Cruelty to Animals have also been lodged with the SAPS.
“Before you go out to take a selfie with a lion, please think of that lion’s future or any other lion for that matter. This not only applies to lion cub interaction, but it is the case for any other wild animal.”
