{"id":236152,"date":"2016-04-05T18:44:42","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T18:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/zoos-barred-from-allowing-visitors-play-with-young-tiger-bear-cubs\/"},"modified":"2016-04-05T18:44:42","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T18:44:42","slug":"zoos-barred-from-allowing-visitors-play-with-young-tiger-bear-cubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/zoos-barred-from-allowing-visitors-play-with-young-tiger-bear-cubs\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoos barred from allowing visitors play with young tiger &amp; bear cubs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        Animal welfare groups have secured a victory in their fight against roadside zoos that allow members of the public to play with young exotic animals, including baby bears, tigers, and lions.<\/p>\n<div readability=\"68.174776564052\">\n<p>Following complaints from several animal rights groups, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a warning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aphis.usda.gov\/publications\/animal_welfare\/2016\/tech-neonatal-nondomestic-cats.pdf\">notice<\/a>\u00a0to zoos that separate cubs under four weeks old from their mothers and use them for public entertainment.<\/p>\n<div class=\"arcticle__read-more read-more\">\n<p>Read more<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/334848-lion-cub-attacks-child\/\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"read-more__cover\" src=\"https:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/2016.03\/thumbnail\/56ddf10bc4618813528b457f.jpg\" alt=\"\u00a9 Toru Hanai \"\/><br \/>\n    <\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p>In their petition asking the USDA to prohibit public contact with \u201c<em>big cats, bears, and nonhuman primates<\/em>,\u201d animal rights groups cite research which <a href=\"https:\/\/bigcatrescue.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Public-contact-petition-amended-1-13-and-comments.pdf\">found<\/a>\u00a0that cubs prematurely separated from their mothers suffer from nutritional deficiencies and \u201c<em>are denied opportunities for normal social and psychological development<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The petition also states that zoos separate cubs from their mothers early on so that the young animals will \u201c<em>remain submissive for handling by humans for several years<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At some zoos, visitors can pay $50 to take a photo with baby big cats and up to $300 to feed or play with the exotic animals, reports the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/apr\/05\/us-government-cracks-down-zoo-lion-tiger-cubs\">Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.humanesociety.org\/news\/press_releases\/2015\/01\/ok-va-exotics-investigation-012215.html?referrer=https:\/\/www.google.com\/?referrer=http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/apr\/05\/us-government-cracks-down-zoo-lion-tiger-cubs\">The Humane Society<\/a>, an animal activist group, recorded undercover evidence showing two roadside zoos in Oklahoma and Virginia hitting cubs to prevent them from scratching or biting paying customers. (Warning: the video contains strong language.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kIV79gIZMeE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The group claims that one cub posed for 30 photo sessions and took part in five 30-minute play sessions in a single day, meaning just one cub could generate up to $65,000 during the course of a single summer.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aphis.usda.gov\/publications\/animal_welfare\/2016\/tech-neonatal-nondomestic-cats.pdf\">notice<\/a>\u00a0recently released by the USDA, \u201c<em>newborn and infant nondomestic cats four weeks (28 days) of age or younger&#8230;have special handling and husbandry needs<\/em>\u201d and must be \u201c<em>handled safely and protected from harm<\/em>,\u201d including public feeding and handling.<\/p>\n<p>Zoos allowing cubs to be handled by members of the public or separating them from their mothers before four weeks of age will be in violation of the Animal Welfare Act and face prosecution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/338554-zoo-handling-cubs-usda\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Animal welfare groups have secured a victory in their fight against roadside zoos that allow members of the public to play with young exotic animals, including baby bears, tigers, and lions. Following complaints from several animal rights groups, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a warning notice\u00a0to zoos that separate cubs under four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":236153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-236152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}