At the Federal Level The vast majority of U.S. captive tigers
reside in private hands (individual or other), and many
of these cats live in states that do not have laws or
regulations requiring close monitoring or consistent
oversight. It is therefore impossible to account for all
the captive tigers in this country. There is no
comprehensive legislative or regulatory system in
existence at the federal or state level to document how
many tigers are being bred or born each year, how many
may die (naturally or otherwise), or what happens to
tigers or their parts when the animals do perish. There
are similarly no comprehensive provisions for animal
welfare that explicitly regulate how the tigers are
treated: cage size, nutrition, sanitation, veterinary
care, shelter from extremes of weather and temperatures,
breeding, exercise, enrichment, travel, interaction with
the public and disposal of dead tigers.
What we need:
Rescind exceptions to laws that exempt certain
categories of captive U.S. tigers from regulation. U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS) should issue new
regulations removing the exemption for “generic” tigers
under the agency’s Captive-Bred Wildlife (CBW)
Registration system. Most tigers in the United States
are generic or cross-bred, and thus exempt from the CBW
registration system. Rescinding the exemption would
require that many more persons and facilities holding
captive tigers would have to annually report their
year-end inventory of tigers and activities conducted
with the cats, thereby exponentially adding to current
knowledge of the U.S. captive tiger population.
Demand that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) –
through the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
(APHIS) – require all persons or facilities holding USDA
licenses for exhibition or breeding/dealing in tigers
report annually on the number of tigers held, births,
mortality, transfer, or sale. This information should be
kept in a distinct database and made available for
public review.
Close the 4 week petting window for tiger cubs which
currently allows exhibitors to commercially exploit baby
animals in blatant disregard for HSUS and GFAS (Global
Federation of Animal Sanctuaries) standards of humane
treatment. The 4 week window is impossible to enforce
and is often gamed by exhibitors who mistreat cubs to
keep them underweight and apparently compliant to the
age restrictions. And perhaps most significantly, the
closure of the 'petting window' would immediately result
in a massive reduction in tiger breeding, which is the
primary source of captive tigers and all of the related
problems.
Establish, with the participation of true sanctuaries
and the AZA, minimum Animal Welfare standards for
captive tigers – and provide funding and oversight
for enforcement.
At the State Level
At the state level, laws and regulations governing the
keeping of tigers in private possession vary widely:
26 states have laws banning the possession of tigers in
private collections
16 states allow for the keeping of tigers by individuals
but require a state permit or registration
9 states have no laws on the subject
What we need:
Laws or regulations to require a
comprehensive accounting of the number and location of
all captive tigers in the jurisdictions of all U.S.
states that allow private citizens to keep tigers.
Record keeping should include information on the number
of tigers, their locations, owners, births, and deaths. State laws should also ban any breeding of tigers in
facilities that are not USDA-licensed and registered
under the USFWS CBW system.
At the Local Level
Even with better laws and adequate
resources, enforcement agents will be reluctant to shut
down a breeding mill or a roadside zoo because they don’t have
a place for the tigers to go. They don’t want to go into a
facility and euthanize 25 tigers and explain to the community
on the evening news just how this happened and why they can’t
do anything to stop it.
What we need:
A critical component of
the solution to the problems facing captive-bred tigers
in America is a place for these tigers to go.
We need to identify the
true sanctuaries that already exist as well as those
that are in the formative stages and nurture them to the
point where there is a collection of true sanctuaries
that will be able to provide homes for the current
generations of tigers who will become homeless in the
next 20 years.
THE U.S.
FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE The 1970S were golden years for the USFWS Office of
Law Enforcement (OLE). Congress passed the Marine Mammal
Protection Act in 1972, followed by the Endangered
Species Act in 1973.
Newly
appointed chief Clark Bavin, known as the J. Edgar
Hoover of FWS, began to turn old-time game wardens into
professional special agents. Wildlife agents found
themselves shipped off to Glynco, Georgia, to receive
fifteen weeks of intensive training in criminal
investigations, firearms, self-defense, and wildlife
law. It was their final evolution from duck cops into a
new breed of investigators.
By
1977, an all-time high of 220 special agents, trained in
the mode of the FBI, successfully broke the back of the
illegal alligator trade. The timing couldn’t have been
better. The exploitation of wildlife was rapidly rising
as word traveled of the quick and easy money to be made.
The
agents of OLE felt a heady confidence about taking on
the challenge as protectors of America’s wildlife. They
were now federal agents investigating premeditated and
well-organized criminal acts that just happened to
involve animals. Their numbers were growing and FWS
appeared to be solidly behind their work. They couldn’t
have been more wrong. Though their mission remained the
same, it would all be downhill from there.
FWS is
primarily known as a biological-research agency
responsible for protecting wildlife and its habitats. In
a government body mainly composed of managers and
biologists, OLE is forever getting a smaller piece of
the pie. The number of their agents slowly dwindles,
while their investigative caseload continues to grow.
These days OLE has 196 special agents. That’s down from
nearly thirty-three years ago. Take away the number of
supervisory people and there are probably only about 130
field agents in total. And fewer than 20 of them do any
high-level undercover work. By comparison, the FBI has
12,000 special agents. Yet global wildlife crime ranks
just behind drugs and human trafficking in terms of
profit. (Jessica Speart)
The
FWS budget for fiscal year 2009 was $1.4 billion, out of
which the Office of Law Enforcement received only $62.7
million to fight an increasingly sophisticated global
war.
The illegal
trade is estimated at $32 billion —
five hundred times greater
than OLE’s entire annual budget.
