Mark Drysdale has responded to a circulating video that subtractors of the Roaring Cat Retreat near Grand Bend are calling animal abuse. The video shows a trainer interacting with a grown tiger in its cage when it paws at the man, before getting on its hind legs and leaping at him. In response, the trainer kicks the tiger under its chin. The tiger turns away from the man for a brief moment but appears to be unfazed from the exchange.
Drysdale says tigers continually try to assert dominance and will challenge who they feel is in charge to ensure they’re capable of overseeing them. Whether that’s a human, or another tiger in their pact out in the wilderness, the testing of the alpha is continuous. He says with one swat tigers can crush the skull of a cow and they play very rough with one another, and feels that anyone who would consider this exchange as animal abuse or out of line “shows their ignorance,” to think this would cause the animal any ‘pain or peril,’ and that they’ve likely never been standing next to or been in an exchange with an animal of such force.
myFM reached out to Professor and Director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota Dr. Craig Parker to get his thoughts on the video.
“It is the best policy to avoid all direct physical contact, there is no need to go into the enclosure except as a form of self-promotion,” Parker said.
written by Grant Deme
