Just shoot me now. I googled AR and there is a similarity between their varying philosophies and mine. Ewwwwwwwww. We need to add a barfing smilie. Let me preface this by confessing that I'm on my 2nd glass of a splendid 2006 Falchino so there may be a few typees, grammatical tics, and outright falsehoods in what follows. LOL.
I have spent time with captive bred exotics, mostly big cats. Had the best time of my life rolling around with a few smallish puddy cats and have even had the pleasure of cavorting with a few tigers and a lion big as a Mack truck who was suspected to be an allegedly extinct Barbary lion or at least a genetic descendant thereof. Most were purchased as "pets" from exotic breeders/traders and surrendered when they became an inconvenience. Others were retired animals used in films and commercials. And a few more were residents of animal parks taught tricks to amuse us. These are the animals who started to solidify changes that were already occurring in my point of view.
I could stay on this soapbox for-Evah but brevity is probably best -- The exotic trade is to me a symptom of a larger issue that is the true thorn in my britches -- We subjugate everything. When we do so, we confer abject disrespect. The absence of wildness that you referred to makes my point better than I could. Who do we serve by breeding the wild out of these animals?
I have spent time with captive bred exotics, mostly big cats. Had the best time of my life rolling around with a few smallish puddy cats and have even had the pleasure of cavorting with a few tigers and a lion big as a Mack truck who was suspected to be an allegedly extinct Barbary lion or at least a genetic descendant thereof. Most were purchased as "pets" from exotic breeders/traders and surrendered when they became an inconvenience. Others were retired animals used in films and commercials. And a few more were residents of animal parks taught tricks to amuse us. These are the animals who started to solidify changes that were already occurring in my point of view.
I could stay on this soapbox for-Evah but brevity is probably best -- The exotic trade is to me a symptom of a larger issue that is the true thorn in my britches -- We subjugate everything. When we do so, we confer abject disrespect. The absence of wildness that you referred to makes my point better than I could. Who do we serve by breeding the wild out of these animals?