Craig Busch - 'Lion Man' - UK Tour?

[Fixx]

Originally Posted by about_a_girluk

He may not be the best person but it seems the place is going to pot without him. I've read loads of stories about how they can't run it without him!

One of those deaths occurred whilst he was still there I believe, and perhaps if he did not do what he was doing with them i.e. playing at 'taming' them,then the others would not have felt able to enter the enclosures whilst the animals were in there and as a result not died.

[naja-naja]

Originally Posted by bothrops

I absolutely and vehemently disagree with the assumption that declawing is 'routine'. It is a barbaric mutilation that severely impinges on the welfare of the cat leading to crippling arthritis and countless behavioural issues in later life. All so he can go in for a cuddle in safety? give me a break!


As for your second point, I'm a little confused? Either he is breeding for conservation and should be attempting to keep them as wild as possible ready for their eventual release....or he is keeping them as circus performers.

Either way has many pros and cons but they are mutually exclusive he is either for conservation or for 'look at me, I'm in a cage with a whole lion family, riding on the males back - aren't I cool?'.......

no it dorsn't, it is either the amputation of a bone that the cat doesn't use (it sticks up in the pad) OR more commonly a laser surgery that cats ans stuters the claws, leaving small stubs. it is not a barbaric mutilation, no matter who tells you, and has no implications on later life at all.
first and foremost, his lions are preformers. has a group used exclusivley for breeding, that are not interacted with, but some are trained starting by raising them as pets from 2 days old.
the white tigers i feel need to be kept, and kept pure, but aside from white lions and tigers he also kept the extinct in the wild barbary lion, this is a cornservation programme, loads of other zoos are trying to breed them.
why should he keep them wild for realease, these cats wont be realeased, and experiment have been done by dave salmoni and dr. bagavad antle to prove that lions and tigers can and do survive in the wild, including hunting and breeding, while still remaining hand-tame.
and yes, riding on a lions back is cool, have you done it?

[naja-naja]

Originally Posted by gazz

Yes but if all white tigers died out that not a big loss coz as long as the species exist it can be thrown out by the species again.

There are only around 300 Asian lions in the wild and when there gone there gone.This is where Conservation should be going.Conservation is for species not mutations.

yes it would be a big loss because we would have lost a very unique gene, wiped out by people, that has been around for hundreds of years, mabye thousands.
yes the asiastic lion is endangeres but whats wrong with conserving both?

[naja-naja]

Originally Posted by Ssthisto

No, you wouldn't.

Declawed cats' paws LOOK normal... but they are missing the last bone of each toe, which is the bone with the claw attached to it. Because the claws are retractable, that bone is normally hidden within a sort of fold in the toe pad - you only ever see a clawed cat's claw tips "outside" that fold if they're very long or if they've extended the claw.

And yes, I think declawing a cat is mutilation - I've seen first hand what sorts of *mild* behavioural issues it can cause (Tinkerbell, my stepmum's cat, was the worst biter I've ever known - and she did it because she couldn't defend herself with her claws; she seemed to do "pre-emptive strikes" with her teeth instead.) I haven't seen the more severe side of behavioural problems or physical problems it can cause, but that only means I haven't dealt with as many declawed cats as rescues or shelters do.

i personally know a vet tech, of the 200+ declwings they do a year on both domestic and exotics, only 3 have ever had complications. they were all with the old system of declawing, the system being used with the last 10+ years uses a laser the has the kitten up and running around that day, oblivious to the fact that they ever had claws.

[naja-naja]

Originally Posted by x Sarah x

I don't think Craig's first decision was to do conservation work, he wanted to do a program, and to give him a good image and guarantee people would watch the program was to base it on conservation.... which he did to a certain extent.

But what he also did and what others urged him to go into, was to train big cats for TV commercials and films, which he did.

Then i think he found himself stuck between training and conservation work. People were happy with what he was doing with regards to conservation, and the park was receiving huge donations to help with that...on the other hand his training was successful and he had many stunning (white) and friendly cats that were perfect for what the film industry wanted....

In my opinion he was just trying to juggle two things at once that are complete opposites to one another, it caused uproar for people who were one sided to either TV or wildlife.

he never wanted to do the show, he was forced into it by his (cheating) wife and financial issues, first and formost, he is a trainer, who decided to give something back by breeding not only tam cats for the industry, but also wild ones which were only used for zoos and such.
he did end up trying to do too much, and that was his downfall, i hope he can get back up.

[naja-naja]

Originally Posted by SiUK

A keeper got killed at the park the other day

if that was dalu it happened ages ago, loads of bad stuff happened ever since craig was forced out.

[Ssthisto]

Originally Posted by naja-naja

no it dorsn't, it is either the amputation of a bone that the cat doesn't use (it sticks up in the pad) OR more commonly a laser surgery that cats ans stuters the claws, leaving small stubs. it is not a barbaric mutilation, no matter who tells you, and has no implications on later life at all.

Cats absolutely DO use that bone in their toes - being able to "strop" their claws and pull against a claw grip in a tree above their head has important implications for their muscles and spine.

And if you think it doesn't have any implications on later life... I'm not sure how many declawed cats *you've* been around - even if you know a vet tech who does them (and if the vet gets paid to do them, surely they're going to say they're effective and not problematic...) As I said, I've been around a couple, and behaviourally one was *not normal*. She was an aggressive, pre-emptive biter. That's apparently one of the more common effects.

I can imagine that while the declawing operation might have *fewer* physical effects for a housecat, something of the weight of a tiger or lion might well experience more problems from missing the ends of its toes.

[gazz]

Originally Posted by naja-naja

yes it would be a big loss because we would have lost a very unique gene, wiped out by people, that has been around for hundreds of years, mabye thousands.
yes the asiastic lion is endangeres but whats wrong with conserving both?

The white tiger would not be lost as long as the tiger as a species lives.There are meny tigers that are carryers of the white gene.The white gene is a danger to the normal orange and there for a danger to the species.Coz you can get white tigers out of a pair of orange tigers.But a pair of white tigers won't give you any orange tigers.

And yes conserving both is wrong.Asiastic lions need protecting.Tigers need protecting.White tigers do not.

For example there a Albino Gorilla that was found in the wild.Now this is not normal color for Gorilla and is a danger to the small gene pool.Would you really use this as a stud for a breeding program for the future of the Gorilla.Base on it was found in the wild.

[naja-naja]

Originally Posted by bothrops

That's only due to the fact that he was the only one that interacted with the animals, he was the one they were/are imprinted on. He removes the babies from their mother within hours and then hand rears them (in complete contrast to true conservation efforts (i.e. 'keep them wild!')) If he has to do film work etc then one or two animals could almost be excused, expecially if they were acting as ambassadors for the species and all the other cats were truely conservation efforts.
conservation has nothing to do with keeping them wild, it keeping a group of animals safe in captivity as a genetic saftey net incase they get very threatened in the wild.


Unfortunately ALL the cats born at ZWG are treated in this way. He knew full well that he was conditioning ALL his animals to be submissive to him only. I have no idea what he expected to happen to them should he die. As it stands he has found out without such a thing happening.
no it doesn't, he bought a few tame ones, some were rejected he pulled others, there were parent raised ones there too, some he could have limited degrees of interacion with, some he couldn't.
most of his animals were good with other people, just the male tigers that weren't.




Just a point about white tigers. Anyone who knows anything about conservation knows that you attempt to maintain genetic diversity at all costs, but within the species specific karyotype. The white tiger is a recessive, genetic mutation that has only been found in the wild in the same way as albino royals and albino corns. Yes they are naturally occuring (ALL base morphs are!), but they have ZERO value from a conservation point of view. Look closely at any white tiger - most are cross eyed, they die prematurely from kidney failure (in the same way as domestic siamese cats do). Many are born with horrendous facial deformities. To top it all most are not even pure bengal, many are cross bred. Craig also breeds ligers. I have no issue with hybrids per se, but clearly they have no conservation value AT ALL.
and if they do have zero value from a conservation point of veiw, why should they not be kept, are you saying that hobbyists should only keep endangered animals? not breed all out burms and keep indian pythons instead, cull our bcis and keep bcs? and only severley inbred ones sre bred with facial deformites, that doesn't happen at all except by cheap parks that use the same animal and breed all offspring and siblings together, these rare cases are blown out of proportion by anti groups such as bcr. like i said earlier, only mabye 1 in 3 or 4 white tigers are pure bengal, the rest were siberian crosses, craigs were pures. craig did not breed ligers.

The only dilema Craig ever had was which would make him more money - white tigers or ligers. As it stands the ONLY value a white tiger has is to get people who don't understand basic biology but do love animals to part with their hard earns because all they see is 'stunning majestic predator in white'. i.e they can't see past the individual and see the bigger picture to the species as a whole.
like i said he also kept barbary lions, the white tigers were a small part of what he did, he made virtually nothing on the barbary conservation project, and he was a trainer before that, so kept the trained lions and tigers as a sideline to pay for the park, nothing wrong with that.

We all love animals...its very hard not to be in awe of the amzing predator that is a tiger.....it takes a good amount of research and understanding to realise that the beautiful majestic animals that are white tigers, are actually (in REAL TERMS) nothing but random genetic mutations that need to be allowed to live their lives with dignity but should not be bred from and absolutely should not be rereleased into the wild.
why should white tigers not be bred from they were doing fine in the wild till people captured or killed them all, and breeding them isn't doing anything bad.

No-one would ever consider that there should be a breeding and release programme for albino burmese pythons or melanistic or amelanistic squirrels (all of which occur naturally in the wild)....so why the white tiger? Is everyone realy so blinded by the beauty that they can't see past it?
very few people actually want to realease them into the wild, but i see nothing wrong with breeding them in captivity.

Regards

Andy

.....

[naja-naja]

Originally Posted by gazz

The white tiger would not be lost as long as the tiger as a species lives.There are meny tigers that are carryers of the white gene.The white gene is a danger to the normal orange and there for a danger to the species.Coz you can get white tigers out of a pair of orange tigers.But a pair of white tigers won't give you any orange tigers.

And yes conserving both is wrong.Asiastic lions need protecting.Tigers need protecting.White tigers do not.

For example there a Albino Gorilla that was found in the wild.Now this is not normal color for Gorilla and is a danger to the small gene pool.Would you really use this as a stud for a breeding program for the future of the Gorilla.Base on it was found in the wild.
image

so if a zoo breeds both siberian tigers, which are endangered, and withe tigers, (which as the bengal ssp is ) that zoo is wrong? haha