Thanks! That actually means a lot
Britain’s tiger kings
- Thread starter J C
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Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
But members of the public are likely to make that comparison and it will feed into "animal rights" narratives that saturate popular culture.
I agree, a very ignorant programme indeed.
Pantherinae
Active Member
There is a lot of complaining that the programme didn't include accredited zoos. Based on the programme's name and its connotations to Tiger King, I think we can all agree that we were never expecting to see any 'professional' zoos. The agenda of the programme was to focus on the private ownership of wild animals.
Reece Oliver seems to be a decent guy for 'rescuing' the lions to avoid euthanasia, but the enclosures and lack of enrichment that he was providing to his animals is unacceptable. In my opinion, the way he views his animals is also wrong; he appears to view them as domestic pets, which is very concerning.
I was surprisingly impressed with Wolds Wildlife Park. The facility has clean and evidently well-maintained enclosures with animal enrichment. The animals looked healthy and demonstrated good levels of activity in an overall good environment.
Heythrop Zoological Gardens was pretty much what I expected to see. The animals were not demonstrating natural behaviours, which is a concern, but the general environment wasn't too much of a concern. I believe that the animals are well looked after, but I do not support the facility's practices.
I do not support the use of animals in circuses, so the final segment was quite difficult to watch. We are no longer living in the 19th century and I frankly have limited respect for anyone who condones the use of animals in a circus environment.
Reece Oliver seems to be a decent guy for 'rescuing' the lions to avoid euthanasia, but the enclosures and lack of enrichment that he was providing to his animals is unacceptable. In my opinion, the way he views his animals is also wrong; he appears to view them as domestic pets, which is very concerning.
I was surprisingly impressed with Wolds Wildlife Park. The facility has clean and evidently well-maintained enclosures with animal enrichment. The animals looked healthy and demonstrated good levels of activity in an overall good environment.
Heythrop Zoological Gardens was pretty much what I expected to see. The animals were not demonstrating natural behaviours, which is a concern, but the general environment wasn't too much of a concern. I believe that the animals are well looked after, but I do not support the facility's practices.
I do not support the use of animals in circuses, so the final segment was quite difficult to watch. We are no longer living in the 19th century and I frankly have limited respect for anyone who condones the use of animals in a circus environment.
I didn't expect the programme to include accredited zoos because, as you say, that's not what the focus of the programme was about. However, I would have liked the programme to at least acknowledge the existence of professional zoos, maybe even mention briefly what they do and how they are far far more superior to the places that were shown. The mindset of the programme was that there are only two scenarios: (i) Wild animals in captivity living in the sort of places that were featured, or (ii) Wild animals in the wild.
Agreed, but as @GiraffeJack10 said, it went drastically downhill after that when he started talking about the Tigers like pets. The bigger picture is that for people to start thinking of endangered wild animals as pets will only fuel the illegal pet trade and poaching of these animals from the wild. On top of that not all will end up at places as 'nice' as Wold (which like you say did look clean and tidy but the enclosures looked small and barren to me). They also didn't show where he was keeping the tigers.
Pantherinae
Active Member
I agree. Ideally, the programme should have emphasised that accredited zoos are out there focussing on the conservation of these species in more natural captive environments, as opposed to keeping animals for status or entertainment purposes.
I hope the Government now acknowledge that it is too easy for individuals to keep wild animals in a private capacity and introduce new protocols to prevent the illegal pet trade from being fuelled further.
This is true. The enclosures were relatively small - some may say they are a similar size to enclosures at some accredited zoos. However, the overall quality was decent in my view and significantly better than Reece Oliver's back garden.
The enclosure that had the Leopard in at Wolds Wildlife Park was formally the tigers home, but they are constantly putting up new enclosures as at the end of the programme they said Andrew had been offered 2 tigers, I've been to Wolds and the place is spotless concrete paths everywhere and they have plans to build education building.
I was hoping they would show the other place just down the road from Wolds that has 10 - 11 tigers, yes they have a larger enclosure but they can only have 2 tigers out in the large area as they dont all get on.
She is a patron of the Born Free group and involved in PETA.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
I didn't know about that, but yes they have plenty of celebrities who are unqualified to talk about conservation and / or zoos in both of these organizations.
Why? They are really no different than zoos, there's good ones and bad ones.
I suggest you take that statement and start a new thread for it.
littleRedPanda
Well-Known Member
I'm currently in the middle of watching the second episode and this episode features reptiles and as a reptile owner I can confidently say that the programme is beyond a joke and is based entirely on a lack of education. I will be posting a full analysis of the programme once I've finished watching it.
Why not also complain to the show’s production company?
As long as they get their viewing figures then ITV and production company won't give 2 hoots whether people aren't happy how captive wild animals are being portrayed.
I don't agree with the woman breeding Serval down on the south coast and selling them. That's completely out of order but then if people are stupid enough to keep buying them then they're just adding fuel to the fire.
Exactly. Complaining to ITV wouldn't really get anywhere and wouldn't have an effect on anything.
So after watching both parts of Ross Kemp's tiger king series I have a lot of things I want to say. The second episode had far more content that could be criticized. Firstly we have the man who keeps snakes and large monitors. His setup might seem bizarre and almost cruel but from someone who is a part of the reptile community I can say that he knows what he is doing. While the enclosures for his animals might seem cruel and small, the needs of a reptile are far different than the needs for a large feline. Some of his animals could've had more space but on the whole it seemed ok. The venomous snakes featured were false water cobras and mangrove snakes, both mildly venomous and rear fanged species meaning that the worst that could happen if feeling nauseous and sick. Neither can deliver fatal bites. And to be honest seeing 'hardman' Ross Kemp being scared of a small, non-venomous carpet python was incredibly amusing and his lack of knowledge really showed when he suggested that the man should move his monitor to a sanctuary with lots of open space and other lizards. This time we did actually see a real zoo being featured although this was obviously the worst example they could've chosen with Borth. A small zoo being run by inexperienced people who have no idea what they're doing. Ross also brought up the idea of selling the lions which actually annoyed me that the zoo owners didn't explain how licensed zoos don't buy and sell animals. Another thing that both confused and annoyed me was the overdramatic segment on the escaped serval. Yes they can be dangerous animals but they made it seem like it was a deadly monster set on attacking people. Overall the show was based on a serious lack of education from unprofessional and inexperienced people, choosing the worst possible examples and making out that they are the standard in captive animals. I just hope that our much loved licensed and 'real' zoos don't suffer from the backlash of this fairly pointless joke of a television programme.
I believe he predominantly uses a rack/RUB system, is that correct? I'm going off screenshots/online comments, as I didn't watch. While he may well know what he is doing, this is (in my view, and in many others') an archaic form of reptile keeping that does strongly impact on reptile welfare, especially snakes (light and heat limitations, inability to rest/stretch at full body length). Just because they survive in these conditions, does not mean it is appropriate to keep them in such.
There is a recent publication awaiting peer review on the use of racks with royal/ball pythons that backs this up: Animal-appropriate housing of ball pythons (Python regius) — Behavior-based evaluation of two types of housing systems.
Like I said a few of his reptiles could do with more space. It is accepted in the reptile community to house animals in that way. Personally I prefer to keep my reptiles in large vivariums with all of the essential lighting and heating as well as naturalistic substrate and plants. The things that di really upset me about rack systems is the lighting or lack of lighting and a lack of space for animals to climb and a proper heat gradient usually can't be achieved in such a small space. His largest pythons seemed to be in decent enclosures but I dread to think how much his electricity bill is. I 'only' keep 5 reptiles so I can't begin to imagine the costs for 40+.
This is my main issue - IMO it should not be accepted, and some subgroups in the community do not accept it as appropriate keeping. Racks are a way of keeping more animals for less money, and compromising their welfare.
I don't necessarily think private reptile keeping is hugely relevant to this programme's subject, widespread as it is, although there probably should be stricter limitations on keeping 'giant' snakes, as well as the DWA requirements for venomous species.
I fully agree with this statement and I feel that I am being a bit too lenient with what I said before. I don't keep my reptiles in those conditions and I wouldn't support anyone who does. The reptile community is in a big need of a change because reptiles shouldn't be kept in racks with insufficient lighting, heating and space. The reason I keep a fairly small number of reptiles is because I want to give them the best care I can. Some reptile keepers compromise the animals welfare in order to be able to keep more of them and IMO this is definitely wrong. On the whole though I think he was one of the better examples of animal owners shown in the show which is a pretty worrying thing.