Animal trainers

[Shadow]

(07-05-2019, 03:35 PM)Spalea Wrote: @Shadow :

About #173: I see a difference between captive animals and captive trained animals. I don't have any bias against captive animals which are a consequence of our actual epoch. But to see some big felids doing what a trainier want them to do is tragic for me, because the animal's true "intelligence" can be only seen in wild. No need to argument about that.

That being said, of course I don't doubt about the trainier's sincerity and love toward his animals. And to see several lions and tigers, males and females, sharing the same show without problem would be always more instructiv than seeing them fighting because the show would present some big failures.

It is actually quite interesting thing to think a bit. In zoos animals are in cages, sometimes alone, sometimes with some others. There they are then, some interaction with people, when feeding and/or needing some treatment...

Then we have animals in some shows, circuses etc. These animals travel a lot, but then again, they also have a lot of interaction there with trainers, maybe with some other animals in the show. Which is then better? For instance you can see how tiger Bella(?) goes to Lacey before leaving enclosure in show, pushing with head and obviously waiting to be caressed a bit. You can see how King tenderly pushes Masai when they come down from those high seats. 

So even though they do as trainer wants there, do they suffer for that? These animals have born as domestic animals practically, used to people, not taken from savannah or jungle. It is easy to say, as some say, that cruel and not good. Overall I agree, that wild animals should be wild. And the less there are captive "wild animals", the better. But I wonder if that is too easy just to be offended always, when seeing a captive animal. 

In time hopefully tigers and lions would be in captivity only if needing some treatment justified by conservation efforts. But meanwhile when discussing about captive animals, I think that it is good to think about it, that some animals might even enjoy about many aspects of their life even though performing in circus. I haven´t payed attention too much, but for instance @Kathlee111 mentioned, that animals she trained lived in some farm or something like that and had also opportunities to spend time outside cages. Actually that would be interesting to know better. How much "vacations" these animals, performing in shows, have and do they have possibilities to just relax and spend time in bigger enclosures, feeling the wind and some free space at least time to time? Reply