Were Siegfried and Roy real conservationists?

[DavidBrown]

There is a lot of talk about white tigers and white lions floating around various threads here, as well as a thread on "The Secret Garden" at the Mirage.

This got me wondering if Siegfried and Roy were (or are) real conservationists, or if all of their talk of contributing to wildlife conservation was just marketing hype to justify their breeding of white lions and tigers.

Does anybody know if they have actually given any conservation funding to meaningful conservation projects in Africa or Asia for big cat conservation?

Did they ever have a meaningful conservation message in their shows? I know that they were criticized for using an Asian elephant in their show, but that seems to have been mostly an animal welfare issue (although that does connect with conservation at some level). Does their zoo at the Mirage have any meaningful conservation message?

Does the Cincinnati Zoo have any meaningful conservation projects that they do in partnership with Siegfried and Roy in their partnership to display white lions and tigers, or is this all just marketing hype?

Does anybody have an opinion about this?

 

[Dassie rat]

It is generally illegal to feed vertebrates to captive lions and tigers, so these animals tend to have little scope to develop natural hunting behaviours, unless they kill an intruding animal or an unfortunate keeper. Zoos tend to keep these animals to attract visitors who expect to see lions and tigers. As the big cats are extremely unlikely to be sent to wild habitats, even if sufficient land can be found, I don't think it really matters if zoos want to keep white lions and tigers, rather than those of ordinary colour. Many vistors find the white lions and tigers are attractive and probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a Sumatran tiger and a Malayan tiger,as long as it's a tiger.

Personally, I'd prefer to see some of the smaller cats, such as flat-headed cats, bay cats, kodkods, Chinese desert cats and Andean mountain cats, but I'm in a tiny minority. If zoos want to show white lions and tigers, it's up to them. Having thousands of captive lions and tigers in zoos is not conservation if there is insufficient habitat to return them to.