Black Jaguar White Tiger - “Fact” or "Fiction?"

Black Jaguar White Tiger’s “Facts” More Influenced by Edward Bernays’ “Order out of Chaos” Theory Than By The Truth

The title really does make sense. And, as this post will be a long one, we can afford to offer readers some background as to what inspired it.

Billed by himself as “America’s No1 Publicist” Edward Bernays is widely regarded as a pioneer in the fields of public relations and propaganda, and his influence continues on in today’s ever-growing digital world where good propaganda, and a chic public relations manager can create an entirely false public identity for a person or group. Often, such efforts of “rebranding” an already known entity take place directly in front of the public eye, but dazzled by slick graphics, and “feel-good” stories, that the public will either not recognize the fact that they’re being lied to, or they’ll choose to embrace an idealistic promise over the reality they already hold in their hand. Even if they understand the falsehoods for what they are, fear of ostracism will cause them to abjure from taking a stand about it.

Such are the psychological and sociological natures of humanity on which Bernays constructed his immensely successful public relations career. Bernays believed vehemently (and correctly) that the “masses” of humanity were easily swayed, and could be manipulated into believing anything if the idea was presented to them in the correct way. You can listen to Bernays himself explain how he successfully altered the fashion of an era in order to sell Lucky Strike cigarettes to women here.

Bernays just as correctly observed that:

“Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power…”

However, in a darker, disturbing manner, Bernays also believed that because humanity in general was so easily manipulated, and that those who carried out that manipulation held ruling power, it was the duty of those capable of manipulating the public to do so for the greater good.

Bernays stated in his books, and publications that:

“Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos.”

Bernays argued that the “masses” would inevitably succumb to manipulation anyway, and that “good” propagandists could therefore compete with “evil” propagandists without incurring any moral cost for it. He thoroughly believed that lying to the public for the right reasons in order to counter those lying to the public for what he perceived to be the wrong reasons negated the fact that you were lying to the public at all. His designs for public manipulation were so well thought out and successful that Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels used them as the blueprint for his campaigns.

This ideology, although hugely problematic on a moral level, is one that is currently being embraced by the vast majority of media constructs, and in every facet of society.

Conservation is no exception. All of the organizations and people addressed by CWW have embraced the activity of lying to the public, their fans, and supporters, in order to further what they perceive to be the “greater good” of their own endeavors.

Kevin Richardson supports the captive lion breeding, cub petting, and canned hunting industries monetarily through the purchase of lions from within it, rationalizing this activity by insisting that the lions he bought will have good lives, and that the movie he made using them will “spread awareness”. Richardson supports the use of captive wild animals in for-hire activities, such as TV productions, movies, ad campaigns, staged photography of “wildlife” and other commercial venues, rationalizing that these for-profit ventures “raise awareness” about conservation. He also actively tries to minimize his participation in these industries by suggesting those who criticize him are quibbling over his methods, and dividing the conservation arena.

Dean Schneider supports the captive lion breeding, cub petting, and canned hunting industries by funding through the purchase of lions from within it, rationalizing this activity by insisting that the lions he bought have been “rescued” from terrible lives. He is currently, avidly manipulating the public, and his ever-growing fan base, to believe that holding lions in large enclosures which also contain prey species, allows those captive lions to “live wild” and is no different from the existence of wild lions, despite that they’re actually in captivity.

And then there’s Black Jaguar White Tiger, who provides an entirely different, but synonymous sort of lies to the public.

Anyone who has followed CWW will recall the repeated claims by Black Jaguar White Tiger founder Eduardo Serio that it’s his responsibility to “save #planetstupid” from its own mechanizations via BJWT’s social media presence. Again, and again on the BJWT Instagram, Serio has ranted about how he, and his foundation, are responsible for wresting the control of #planetstupid away from the “dark side of humanity” who don’t understand anything. Serio’s superiority over the rest of humanity, and his assertion that he intends to bring the world into alignment with his own beliefs, which he regularly posits are the only beliefs that can save #planetstupid serve to provide the objective viewer with clear evidence as to his utter, and complete, narcissism.

The very wellspring of Black Jaguar White Tiger was a personal social media account documenting the daily life of a pet black jaguar, as she was raised in the well-appointed, second-residence, Acapulco mansion of Hollywood socialite, Eduardo Serio. In 2013, a black jaguar cub was introduced to followers of Serio’s personal Instagram page–many of whom were well-connected actors, actresses, models, fashion designers, and entrepreneurs, as his “daughter” Cielo. The black jaguar was followed in short order with a tiger cub, Tierris, and, after voicing the fact that his family would be complete with a female lion, the magical appearance of a female lion cub, Karma, all of them “adopted” by their “Papa Bear”.

It was from this private Instagram page, that BJWT was born. Eventually, Serio announced the development of the Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation, hosting his friends to play with the various big cat cubs he magically came into possession of on a constant basis. Four years later, BJWT is arguably the “best known” animal-related Instagram account in existence, and still regularly hosts celebrities playing with cubs. The BJWT Instagram feed is filled with guests handling cubs, volunteers handling cubs, and Eduardo Serio and his personal friends handling cubs and larger cats.

Originally visiting BJWT for two days, once a year was listed as a sponsorship reward for anyone willing to shell out $1,000 USD a month in monthly donations. Only after groups like CWW began pointing out that this was simply a fancy pay-to-play scheme was that reward removed from the BJWT website. To this day, BJWT fans claim the screenshots like those shown below have been faked by “haters” to make Serio look bad, and they claim that Serio never “sold” visits to BJWT in exchange for money.

The animals at BJWT have come from various sources, cubs (in many cases early on) were purchased within Mexico’s rampant big cat breeding industries. In other cases, Serio has obtained former pets (sometimes by forcing owners who had licenses and did not want to give them up, to hand them over anyway, according to a few sources) or, according to yet other sources, Serio arranged with various zoos to receive cubs from them. This isn’t something Serio made any attempt to hide. He’s posted photos of Maztu’s father, still living in a zoo-like facility where tourists pay to take photos with him (Serio defends this breeding and petting facility claiming that they take great care of the cats they use) and Maztu’s cousin (whose father is the brother of Matzu’s father) was “rescued” by BJWT after being bred at the same facility where Maztu’s father lives (which begs the question of why he needed to be “rescued, since Serio says that facility is great, despite the breeding and letting the public handle animals). Serio’s friendships within the government to assure that any animals confiscated are funneled to BJWT, or, at least according to our government contacts, that he gets “first dibs” on them, at which point he might pick and choose who to rescue. He has also used these government connections, again, according to CWW’s Mexican contacts, who are widespread within the Mexican conservation industry, to force the closure of facilities, or stop the construction of new facilities which he feels would threaten BJWT’s position as the best known facility in Mexico.

Serio doesn’t try to hide any of these facts. Instead, he simply rebrands, and redefines them, and their accompanying implications in ways that ascribe a sense of righteous beneficence to the actions, with himself and BJWT as the heroes of the story.

Celebrated, and world renown big cat organizations, are to be eschewed, according to Serio. He publicly scorns any established standard of care and ethical creed, like the GFAS, which is admired by others, informing his followers that such establishments are what have destroyed the planet to start with. But behind the scenes, Serio changed BJWT’s name on its Mexican registration to Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco simply so that he could insist that BJWT is a “registered sanctuary”.

Celebrated, and world renown big cat organizations, are to be eschewed, according to Serio. He publicly scorns any established standard of care and ethical creed, like the GFAS, which is admired by others, informing his followers that such establishments are what have destroyed the planet to start with. But behind the scenes, Serio changed BJWT’s name on its Mexican registration to Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco simply so that he could insist that BJWT is a “registered sanctuary”.

One of the few things overtly indicating the cheap, abusive underpinnings of BJWT and its founder, Eduardo Serio, has always been Serio’s flare for hyper-dramatized posts, on both the BJWT social media accounts. His habit of grandstanding and his gleeful hate-filled rhetoric that spans the gamut of themes.

From publicly accusing women who thwart him in some way of being whores simply because they thwarted him in some way

Translation of Serio's caption:O remember our lion Hope? As it turns out, this cheap woman Erika Ortigoza ran a superficial mediocre and small zoo, so mediocre that it was forced to close and become a veterinary clinic only because all the people complained. When we started, Erica had relations with Jorge Maksabedian, in charge of permits and give money scholarships to zoos on behalf of the government. Well, that idiot, following the instructions from his lover, Erika, he withheld our permission already authorized and had to transfer Hope to that clinic, but Erika is so mediocre that I just lost Hope and returned her to the owners of the restaurant where it had been confiscated from a cement cage and bars instead of be in a pack with us. I cried and cried and the years passed and I waited to say the whereabouts of Hope. She was saying that we didn’t have permission, what she did not say, is that we already had it authorized but had been held by his Lover whom literally, he had relationships for in exchange of scholarships. The new administration arrived and they ran Jorge Maksabedian and sometime later, to Erika. They cleaned the house.

To suggesting that certain groups of people should either be executed, or forced to kill themselves, Serio’s history of sectarian and intolerant public rants on the BJWT social media pages have, indeed, been the stuff of legend.

Until now.

In recent months, material has been quietly disappearing from the BJWT social media sites. Beginning with the brutal, and abusive posts concerning the young woman who entrusted him with her Savannah cats (whom he has been attacking in court repeatedly for years now, like the egomaniacal cretin he is) and continuing to posts that publicly attacked the ethical conservationists involved in trying to avoid BJWT obtaining custody of six Colombian circus lions (which BJWT had already promised to take, and then abandoned after Serio was not able to gain the permits required to import them) Serio’s more outrageous attacks have now been deleted from BJWT’s pages.

In many cases (such as those involving the Colombian lions) the posts contained photoshopped images of confidential letters sent to the Columbian government, which had been passed on (illegally) to Serio, lying about what the people Serio was attacking had done.

The letter which Serio photoshopped and falsified, then attributed to I.C.A.R.U.S. Inc.

The actual letter that was sent to the Colombian government by I.C.A.R.U.S. Inc.

In other cases Serio’s captions were simply disgusting rants declaring his superiority (for his connections to a corrupt Colombian government, no less) in a fashion more suited to a drunk frat boy than a professional entity.

Never mind that the "2 years" cited by Serio involved BJWT abandoning the lions. Only after he started a second fundraiser (no one knows where the funds from his first fundraiser ended up) did it become clear that BJWT had already raised money for these lions and then abandoned them.

If posts of this nature remain, the captions have now been deleted, leaving only the photos behind, without explanation.

The posts remain on BJWT's Instagram account, but now have no captions.

From stating that Erika Ortigoza slept around to get what she wanted, to an unexplained photo of her.

Then BJWT’s newest website overhaul was recently announced, giving some context to the disappearance of Serio’s more childish, and lying photoshopped posts. In just the short time since Serio announced that BJWT would be working with Greathergood, a company that specializes in Public Relations, Greathergood has, apparently done its best to “clean up” BJWT’s immature, and distasteful edges in hopes of making the foundation look more legitimate.

The new BJWT website contains donate buttons on every page, sometimes in more than one place, and newsletter buttons everywhere else. Photo credit BJWT

The announcement of a revamped BJWT website was not a surprise to CWW or others who have spoken out about the pseudo-sanctuary. It was obvious that Serio was no longer the only person making social media posts. BJWT’s Instagram description had changed from announcing that they were making #planetstupid fall in love animals one post at a time to a description nobly claiming that BJWT is “Changing the world by rescuing Animals, educating humans, and reforming laws.”

Photo credit BJWT. The message of intent on the BJWT has also been rewritten in a more appealing and less condescending manner.

Captions on social media posts began containing proper grammar, and though still lacking in information, and a knowledge about conservation, blurbs were longer, with a noted focus on bettering the Foundation, bettering enclosures. Posts had begun appearing which actually discussed–for the first time in four years–the widespread abuse of captive wild animals, with accompanying dialogue encouraging fans to help BJWT stop it–by supporting BJWT, of course. Directly counter to Serio’s longstanding criticism of “political correctness” BJWT had become just that, precisely caring enough to look caring, but superficial enough not to offer any hard information, or facts.

The demarcation between the “Serio is in solely charge of BJWT’s public image” and “A Public Relations Rep is in charge of BJWT’s public image” had already been sharply drawn. A new website with new content was just the next logical step in the process.

Only, this is Black Jaguar White Tiger, built from the ground up on lies, misinformation and misrepresentation, and controlled entirely by Eduardo Serio. So of course, the new website does not actually provide fans with any “new” information, nor does it provide them with anymore clarity about BJWT’s actions, or goals. It simply conveys the misnomers and talk-arounds in a less-grating and more professional manner. For BJWT fans, and those of the public not educated to know any better, the new BJWT website is flashy, and well-written.

To the eye of a professional conservationist, however, the lack of big cat, conservation, ecological, medical, and scientific understanding is painfully obvious. For those of us with all of the above, the new BJWT looks like what it is: a shiny illusion created by lay-folk.

The various areas of the new website contain snazzy tabs leading to pages which, at best, contain either inanely superficial, but “clean and pleasant” versions of what on the old BJWT website contained, or likewise inanely superficial blurbs about subjects that have never been addressed in BJWT’s four year history. Each new page provides bright red donate buttons.

Clicking "Stop the cruelty" takes you to the donation page. Photo credit BJWT

Clicking "Support BJWT" takes you to the donation page. Photo credit BJWT

The upper corner always contains a bright orange Donate button. Photo credit BJWT

Some pages contain multiple vectors which take viewers directly to the donation page. Here you can see the standard Donate button in the upper right corner, but the "Support BJWT" also takes you directly to the donation page. Photo credit BJWT

But at worst, these pages of the new BJWT website contain blatantly displayed contradictions, incorrect information, unfounded claims, or entirely pointless facts that serve no purpose but to look important. The much ado about “legal reform” for example. Simply knowing people involved in making laws doesn’t mean you’re actually involved with influencing or working toward reform. Our Mexican contacts keep us abreast of issues, and while there are several laws in process that would potentially benefit captive big cats, they remain in process and Serio has not participated in any part of their creation or furtherance.

Clicking "Pledge BJWT" takes you directly to the donation page, as does the Donate button. Photo credit, BJWT

Clicking on the BJWT Legal Reform takes you to the page shown in the image above this one, where the only "option" is to click "Pledge BJWT" which takes you directly to the donation page, rather than discussing any laws currently being lobbied. Photo credit, BJWT

Then there’s Serio’s repeated lie about being a registered sanctuary. Notice that while the question “Are we a licensed sanctuary” is listed as “Absolutely” the continuance specifies that BJWT is licensed as a PIMVS. Under SEMARNAT’s definition, a PIMVS facility is described as: “PIMVS are considered to be intensive breeding sites, nurseries, botanical gardens or similar that manage wildlife in a confined manner for purposes of controlled reproduction of species or populations for commercial use (LGVS Regulation, Art. 2) You can read SEMARNAT’s breakdown here.

Photo credit BJWT. The new BJWT website continues to mislead viewers and fans into thinking they possess a sanctuary license, something that doesn't exist.

The actual registration BJWT holds as a PIMVS.

Serio has repeatedly posted his PIMVS registration to “prove” BJWt is a registered sanctuary, but the truth is that BJWT is registered as a PIMVS (not a sanctuary) under the name Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco.

And in combination with that continued lie, is the perpetuated misinformation that the Mexican Foundation, “Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco” which fans see all over social media is registered in the US as a nonprofit.

The facilities viewers see in Eduardo Serio’s social media posts is not registered in the US as a nonprofit.

Photo credit BJWT. Note the date specified here. BJWT threatened legal action against the author of an article published before January 11 2016 which stated that BJWT was not a 501c3. Serio attempted to smear the name of the author, calling them a liar, and stating he would sue, when in fact the information in the article was 100% correct. At the time of publication, BJWT was not a 501c3.

Serio proudly proclaims that BJWT holds a nonprofit status in the US, but notice the name on in the BJWT answer, and the name on the 990 listed below. The name listed on the US 501c3 documentation is not Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco, the name on the Mexican PIMVS registration. Serio’s “licensed sanctuary” Gran Santuario Mexicano Jaguar Negro Tigre Blanco is not recognized as a nonprofit in the US. The US nonprofit is an entirely separate entity, registered under the name Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation, located in Woodland Hills CA. Serio intentionally lies to his fans, telling them that the BJWT they watch on his social media posts, which has “rescued” so many animals is a registered US nonprofit.

Another issue where the new BJWT just provides the same lies Serio has been telling since BJWT is founded, is in regard to habitats and space. For example, this screenshot from the new BJWT website describes the customized habitats (for new viewers, the image shown here is not the area the blurb is actually describing. The area shown below is at Stage 1, where Serio does most of his interaction filming) Still, it looks beautiful and sounds great. Only it’s not true.

Stage 1, rather than Stage 2 which is being described. Photo credit BJWT

Below is a photos Serio himself posted on the BJWT Instagram page intending to prove that PETA was lying about BJWT in their article criticizing the pseudo-sanctuary. Although he likely felt better for making the post, Serio inadvertently proved his own billing on the new BJWT website was a lie. In the below photo, around 70 enclosures are visible. However, there are only two swimming pools. There have only ever been two pools located at Stage 2, and both contain tigers, the “Blue Pride” being one of them. We’ve circled the two pools (one slightly large than the other, the second partial hidden by shadow but still visible) This arial image–which Serio considered valid and correct, and used himself to “prove” how wonderful BJWT is–allows any viewer to look for the 70 custom pools he’s supposedly put in every habitat. Serio has even pointed out lions within it, offering perspective on size. Clearly there is not a “custom swimming pool” inside each habitat.

Again, recent Instagram posts made by Serio discussing overhauls of habitats clearly show the two pools which can be seen above, both containing tigers.

When the BJWT website attempts to impress readers with the amount of land in BJWT’s possession, again, they fall woefully short, and instead put their ignorance and lack of comprehension on full display.

Photo credit BJWT

On one area of the new BJWT website it states BJWT has 130 acres, but in another area, it lists 120 acres leaving 10 acres that’s either unaccounted for, or falsely claimed. While mistakes can happen, an entity that bills itself as the “best Sanctuary on Planet Earth” should be able to accurately state how many acres they own.

Photo credit BJWT

More troubling than the discrepancy of 10 acres, however, is the statistics provided by these points of information.

As per the new BJWT website, they have 700 animals living onsite.

Photo Credit BJWT

And as per Serio’s most recent boast about big cat numbers, 400 of those animals are big cats.

Out of the total acreage listed as belonging to BJWT–we’ll be generous and call it 130 acres–only 30 acres have been built on. Those 30 acres contain 70 habitats which house, let’s be generous, and say 350 animals, leaving 50 cats at Stage 1. For simplicity, let’s divide the acreage evenly by the number of habitats.

30 ÷ 70 = 0.42.

So, if all the habitats were the same size, each one would only contain 0.42 acres of space. But let’s be even more generous, and round that up to 0.5, a full half acre. 0.5 of an acre is 21,780 square feet of space.

Again, let’s be generous, and round up to 22,000 square feet of space. Trust us, BJWT needs the generosity because to give readers some perspective, a standard American Football field is 57,600 square feet.

So even with our generous, repeated rounding up of the numbers, and the removal of 50 big cats from Serio’s claim that he’s rescued 400, once you break down the numbers BJWT houses an average of 5 adult big cats on less than half a football field of space.

Now, it’s clear from Serio’s own arial view of BJWT’s habitats that some are larger than others, so that means some of them are larger than 0.5 acres. But that also means that a great many of them are smaller than 0.5 acres, too. And as can be seen in the image provided by Serio, some of those habitats are considerably smaller than the rest. Half or more, in fact, of the visible enclosures are very small.

By comparison, The Wild Animal Sanctuary located in Colorado (which Serio disdains) houses a similar number of big cats and other carnivores in habitats varying in size from 5 full acres to 25 acres. Serio boasts of having 120-130 acres of land, assuring fans that BJWT has only built on 30 so far to house their 350-400 big cats, while TWAS (which Serio derides as not caring about big cats) encompasses 789 acres at their Keensburg educational facility which houses around 400 carnivore and is open to the public.

The TWAS Refuge facility which is not open to the public, contains an additional 9,684 acres, of habitats ranging from 100 to 1,000 acres in size where rescued animals live in as natural conditions as possible.

The TWAS educational facility houses state of the art medical and surgical buildings, specialized housing, and opportunities for teaching and observation by the public (all without any human/animal interaction) and has set the highest standard for big cat care in the USA.

Readers might recall some of Serio’s rants against TWAS and its founder Pat Craig from December of 2017 when he publicly attacked the conservationists who petitioned the Colombian government on behalf of former circus lions which had been living in cages for almost 6 years, hoping to have the lions sent to TWAS (which offered to fully fund rescue and transport of the cats to their new home) The Colombian government chose to send the lions to BJWT in Mexico instead because, they stated after the fact, they already had some paperwork partially filled out for BJWT to receive the lions from more than a year prior when Serio tired to take possession of them, but failed to do so.

After the Colombian government chose to give the beleaguered lions to Serio (one of which magically arrived pregnant through unknown causes) they also passed on to Serio all the private information and documents of those who petitioned them in regard to moving the lions to TWAS. It’s still unclear why the Colombian government would pass on information to a private Mexican citizen, but, you know, corruption, and all that.

The life those who petitioned the Colombian government wanted the former Colombian circus lions to have at TWAS:

Photo credit The Wild Animal Sanctuary

Photo credit The Wild Animal Sanctuary

Photo credit The Wild Animal Sanctuary

Photo credit The Wild Animal Sanctuary

And the life the former Colombian circus lions got at BJWT:

Note the reference to fighting.

The lioness above clearly feels defensive and threatened, her cubs surrounded by strange lions which are not family members and which if they could gain access to her and her offspring would immediately kill the cubs. Serio openly admits that the lioness has been fighting the opposing pride of lions housed just feet away from her and her cubs with no visual barrier. Imagine living in constant fear that a challenging pride was going to kill your cubs.

And here are others of the Colombian lions, again, fighting the other lions around them “all day long” through the border fences of their habitat. Rather than understanding the extreme social and emotional stress caused by theses conditions, Serio happily informs his fans that these lions have simply that “Their Lion Spirit got back into their bodies after arriving to our Sacred Grounds.”

Again, fighting is referenced.

There are other, numerous issues with the new BJWT website, not the least of which is the continuation of using interactions to sell volunteer slots and donation slots. Serio’s original, highly dramatic “Sacred Ground” rhetoric is still present, though quietly shelved in a less visible area of the website. In its place are Volunteer guidelines, carefully worded so as to put emphasis on the safety of the animals and volunteers.

Photo credit BJWT

And yet, even these revamp “rules of engagement” are accompanied by blatantly contradicting media. Despite that the “rules” for volunteering state that “All volunteers are required to wear the BJWT Volunteer uniform while at the Foundation” that “Accessories will are not worn at any time.” and that “Colored nail polish is prohibited.” The accompanying photos clearly show volunteers wearing all manner of clothing, none of it a uniform of any sort, handling cubs while wearing jewelry, and wearing colored nail polish.

Photo Credit BJWT

Photo credit BJWT

Photo credit BJWT

Cell phones are supposedly prohibited on the “Sacred Grounds” of BJWT, yet volunteers happily pose with them against enclosure fences.

Photo credit BJWT

“YOU CAN NOT TOUCH THE ANIMALS THROUGH THE FENCE.” is stated in all caps definitively, and yet... Serio turns around and posts photos of volunteers petting Bradshaw (renown amongst BJWT fans for being “huge” no less)

Photo credit BJWT

The recent injury sustained by a woman who got close enough for a jaguar (less than half the size of Bradshaw) to snag her arm through a fence similar to the one seen above with just one claw showcases how quickly a captive big cat can act, and how devastating even glancing contact can be for the human involved.

Photo credit Adam Wilkerson

The list of issues with BJWT goes on. But as long as the public continues to submit to Serio’s propaganda and manipulation of them, nothing will change. After four years of lies and manipulation, it’s long overdue for the public to start waking up and asking questions, rather than blindly swallowing whatever false information, and self-serving lies Serio spoon feeds them in order to further his own ends.

CWW is often accused by those we discuss as having some sort of personal agenda, and/or we’re challenged by them, or their fans, as to what we’re doing that’s “better” than whatever the person in question is doing. These statements about us are designed to create the impression that CWW has set out to vilify the entities we discuss, thus creating some sort of conflict in an “us versus them” context.

This is categorically incorrect.

What CWW wants to encourage the public to do is to look beyond the propaganda, and PR lingo and objectively view the actuality of the person they’re supporting. Humanity’s general inability to set aside personal preference for objective assessment has played a huge role in creating the debacle that our world is currently facing. It’s more comfortable to look at someone playing with lions, or bottle feeding (even incorrectly) adorable cubs and believe that what you’re seeing is special, that it represents hope, and affection. It’s far less comfortable to look at such things and admit that the lions were raised with daily interaction to behave in a certain way, and that the video clip you’re viewing is one created specifically to show you exactly what’s visible, or to admit that the cubs being bottle fed are simply the most recent in a line of cubs being bottle fed that stretches back years, just the most recent cubs in a list of cubs being bottle fed.

We also understand that CWW itself is–and should be–subject to being viewed with the same detached objectivity with which we want readers to view the exploiters we discuss on a daily basis. This is why we strive to provide our readers with citations and media to verify everything we write, and all the information we disseminate. Why, many times, we provide multiple citations to entirely separate sources which all confirm the same facts we’ve utilized in an article.

We don’t want readers to simply embrace our word as fact. Doing so erroneously relegates the information we publish as nothing more than our own “propaganda” by presuming that what we’ve said is simply our own opinion, rather than an issuance of categorized, cited and documented facts intended to encourage readers to go and do their own research on a person or organization.

To create in readers the desire to know more, to develop their own breadth of education, grasp and understanding of captive wildlife, wild wildlife, and the conservation of both, is the underlying desire of CWW.

Don’t stop at our pages and articles, don’t receive them as a result or conclusion.

Use the information found through CWW as a starting point, as the catalyst for change in your own awareness. Use the tools for research, for analytical reasoning and impartial assessment that we have offered in regard to the various exploiters we discuss, to go out and commit to your own investigations of those parties.

*Headline photo credit to Black Jaguar White Tiger *Other photo credits as noted.

The Rising Stars of Commerce-Conservation

Lead Image Source : Puma

The Rising Star of Commerce-Conservation: David Yarrow & Kevin Richardson Exploit Captive Lions to Conserve Wild Ones

As a follow up to yesterday’s critical discussion of the ethics, or lack thereof, possessed by David Yarrow, we wanted to provide readers with a little more depth into why Yarrow’s ethics and lack of transparency about which of his “wildlife” photos actually contain wildlife matters. Also, we wanted to address the subject of responsibility in such matters as pertaining to both Yarrow, and his many-times-partner, Kevin Richardson.

Citing the now ubiquitous quote from Uncle Ben of Spiderman “With great power comes great responsibility.” If you are reaching millions of people with information which you intend to be educational in regard to the subject matter involved, you have a moral obligation to assure that the information you are providing to those millions of people is as accurate and truthful as possible.

If you are reaching millions of people with information which you intend to be educational in regard to the subject matter involved and that information is knowingly misrepresented in order to misinform the public to your monetary advantage, then you are simply committing market abuse.

With David Yarrow’s background in finance, the term “market abuse” will be well understood. For those who aren’t familiar with the term in this context, “market abuse” is defined by the Financial Conduct Authority as “insider dealing, unlawful disclosure of insider information, and market manipulation”. Regulations against, and punishment for such activities are, in no small part, what led to the death of “the good old days” of market trading, which Yarrow so abhorred that he left the financial arena. Of course, there is no photography industry version of the FCA, there are no legally-binding regulations within the world of wildlife photography that prevent a photographer from engaging in insider trading, unlawful disclosure of insider information, and market manipulation.

But that doesn’t mean those terms can’t, or don’t, apply to the world of photography.

Because David Yarrow markets his photographs (many of them containing Richardson’s captive lions) as being for the benefit of conservation and wildlife and for the purpose of raising awareness about both, he has a fiduciary responsibility to both the public to whom he’s issuing those photographs, and the realm of conservation which he’s professing to represent. Per his own statements, one of the only two ways photography can help conservation is by raising awareness with the public. Therefore Yarrow has a fiduciary responsibility to both the conservation industry, and the public, to act in an accountable, ethical manner. So does Kevin Richardson, whose animals are often featured in Yarrow’s “wildlife” photography. Though supporters of Kevin Richardson have–since CWW began criticizing him–repeatedly insisted that Richardson does not actually claim to be a conservationist, Richardson own website now prominently declares that Richardson is “a world-renown wildlife conservationist” under its Meet Kevin Richardson tab. Similar to Yarrow marketing his photographs as being “wildlife photography” if Richardson is marketing himself as a “wildlife conservationist” then he has a fiduciary responsibility to the public he’s intentionally influencing.

Yarrow is, as one of the best known “wildlife” photographers, obligated by this fiduciary responsibility to abstain from market manipulation in respect to his photography when that photography is being used to support and represent conservation and/or wildlife in the form of wildlife photography. As Yarrow himself has boasted, that art has no borders, what matters is whether or not a photograph is framed as “wildlife photography” or “art”. Yarrow markets his own work widely as “wildlife photography” which puts him squarely in the responsibility chair when it comes to market manipulation, and insider trading.

Since we’ve established that Yarrow–because he promotes himself, and his work, as being done for conservation and wildlife, and representative for and of conservation and wildlife–holds a fiduciary responsibility to both conservation as a whole, and the public to whom he’s presenting himself, we can unequivocally state that Yarrow’s photography empire exists (the same way Richardson’s does) largely, even primarily, through the processes of insider trading and market manipulation.

Yarrow knows that he’s presenting staged photos of trained captive animals to the public as “wildlife” photographs, and he knows that that public is ignorant of these facts, while he also understands that this public will purchase his staged photographs under the pretense of purchasing photos which contain images of wildlife, for the benefit of conservation. He’s even now entered a lucrative partnership with the Mantis Group under the guise of “aiding the global plight for conservation” with his photography skills.

And suddenly, it’s all too clear why Yarrow views the relatively new regulations placed on the financial trading industry as so repugnant as to bring about the end of “the good old days” when investors could, with impunity, grossly profit by misleading those who trusted them.

Yarrow has gone so far as to reference the conservation of wild lions when discussing his famous TAG Heuer campaign photo of Cara Delevingne and a trained captive lion. Whenever he discusses the photo shoot (and we should note that Yarrow considers his photograph, “Cara” to be one of the most powerful photos he’s ever taken) Yarrow takes the time to reiterate how much Kevin Richardson, whose captive lion was used to create the photo, does for “raising awareness” about the plight of wild lions. He never fails to direct attention to Richardson for raising awareness “to the plight of the lions in Africa” even when thanking him for a commercial campaign made with captive trained lions or a photograph that appears to show a wild lion, but actually shows a captive one.

TAG Heuer has done likewise, describing the photo of Delevingne and Vayetse a lion hand-raised and trained by Kevin Richardson as an “homage to the supreme beauty of living creatures. The images carry a message of respect, support and admiration towards animals through an intense, fearless and contemporary campaign,”

By carefully asserting that a commercial photoshoot bought and paid for by a company in order to promote and market their product line using trained, captive lions somehow helps support the conservation of wild lions, Yarrow and TAG Heuer alike are excusing the fact that they exploited captive wild animals for profit.

In case there’s confusion here, renting out lions to take photos is not conservation.

Period.

This has long been one of the primary issues CWW has with Kevin Richardson’s rebirth as a supposed conservationist. Regardless of his promotional material claiming that Richardson acts in the name of conservation, his own websites still advertises his lions as being for hire to anyone interested in using them for ads, commercials, other marketing campaigns or even films and videos (the headline photo used in this section actually shows Richardson working with Yarrow, amusingly enough). While Richardson carefully avoids publicly discussing these activities, he continues to engage in them, just as Yarrow happily waxes poetic about working with Richardson but fails to address the fact that he’s paying for the service of trained lions.

Just two spaces over from "conservation" is a tab advertising Richardson's lions for hire.

The fact that consumers see Richardson’s rent-a-lion business as somehow less exploitive simply because it takes place in South Africa, instead of at an American film studio is mind boggling. And the fact that the media surrounding such ad campaigns as TAG Heuer’s market them as involving “wildlife” and “wild animals” only exemplifies the inauthentic nature of the commerce. Delevingne even stated in this interview, that the one thing she wanted people to take away from her work with Richardson and Yarrow for TAG Heuer, was for them “To respect animals and their habitat.” apparently failing to recognize that nothing in her ad campaign respected lions in their natural state or habitat.

That TAG Heuer’s ad campaign was shot “in real conditions” (in fine print under the watch) is even specified as a selling point in TAG Heuer’s ads imagery.

Photo taken from Grazia.com.au

Just what constitutes the definition of “real conditions” isn’t explained. Real lion behavior? No. Real presentation of a wild lion in a wild habitat? No. Real danger, and very real exploitation? Yes.

The utter repugnance of whoring out trained lions for profit aside, there’s the ongoing–and tragically self-fulfilled–problem of intentionally habituating captive lions to humans, even rewarding them for approaching humans.

In these images taken from various sources, including media which shows the making of TAG Heuer’s most famous ad campaign, provide evidence just what sort of manipulation went on in order to nab that one striking photo.

Richardson starts out well behind Delevingne, using meat to bring the lion closer and closer.

Using chunks of meat thrown on the ground, Richardson encourages Vayetse to come within just feet of Delevingne.

The meat rewards offered by Richardson are clearly visible in this shot.

Despite Richardson's continued insistence that his lions aren't "trained" they nevertheless seem very astute at performing specific tricks on command, such as lifting feet, swiping, silent roaring, and snarling.

Despite several articles about the photoshoot stating that Delevingne had been "assured" that Vayetse would not harm her in Richardson's presence, the lion is too close to Delevingne for Richardson to stop him if he'd attacked.

And there were, apparently, a few instances wherein Delevingne had to scramble for her "safety cage". Image from en.vogue.me

Rather than oooh and ahhh over the danger of Delevingne being in such close proximity to a full grown male lion without any protection, CWW is gobsmacked with horror over the hard documentation of intentionally encouraging a lion to approach a strange human. We’ve known, of course, that Kevin Richardson promotes direct interaction between captive lions and humans.

It’s the only thing that’s made him who he is. If you remove Richardson’s interactions with his lions, you have no commercially viable product. Which is why Richardson does what he does. For the profit of it, and for the gratification of being admired for doing it. It’s why he’s done it since he started at Lion Park in 1997.

But to see a widely released video showing Richardson encouraging one of his lions to approach a young woman, to see Richardson literally dangling meat rewards above that young woman’s head in order to obtain a commercial photograph, well it’s shocking. Even more shocking is the statement, seen in several accounts of the photo shoot, that Delevingne had been assured that Richardson’s lion would not harm her in his presence.

The claim that Richardson maintains such finite control over his lions–and a given situation–as to be able to promise that those lions will not attack another person exposed to them and/or that if something goes wrong he’ll be able to protect that exposed person, is so inconceivably megalomaniacal as to be beyond words.

This screenshot from TAG Heuer's behind the scenes video shows only a few yards between Delevingne and Vayetse with Richardson out of the shot entirely. As African lions can easily jump 10-15 in single pounce, three or four yards would vaporize in fractions of a second, should Vayetse have chosen to attack Delevingne.

Unless Richardson has a hired professional marksman, in position, with the lion maintained in constant target, under orders to shoot the animal without hesitation the moment it even appears to pose a danger to someone other than Richardson, it’s simply not possible to even begin to assure clients that they will not be harmed by the lion, with, or without, Richardson’s presence.

Never mind that Yarrow, who took the photo has said repeatedly in various interviews, as well as in the behind the scenes video, that the logistics of a photoshoot with a world famous model in direct proximity to a lion were extreme because, “You’re dealing with lions that won’t attack Kevin but they will attack everyone else,”

So which is it?

Was Delevingne safe from the lion because he would not attack her in Richardson’s presence? Or was she in constant danger because the lion would attack everyone except Richardson?

Wait, we know this answer. It involves a girl named Megan van der Zwan.

Just days before TAG Heuer was set to release their now-famous photos of Delevingne sitting a few feet in front of a captive lion owned by Kevin Richardson, another of Richardson’s captive trained lions attacked and killed a not-famous young woman on Richardson’s sanctuary.

But, according to Richardson’s one public statement addressing the fatal mauling of van der Zwan by his train captive lioness, it’s van ser Zwan who was at fault for “being outside the car”.

Screenshot of the only public statement (specifically the text in quotations) made by Kevin Richardson on the death of Megan van der Zwan. After this post was made, the press statement was reposted numerous times, resulting in multiple thousands of comments applauding the fact that van der Zwan was dead, cheering the lion on for killing her and declaring that she got was she deserved. Such responses were entirely intended by the careful, legally-minded wording of Richardson's statement which gave the impression that van der Zwan was "outside the car" on a Big Five reserve. In reality, van der Zwan was in a luxury tent camp used by tourists on Richardson's sanctuary grounds.

Never mind that just months after van der Zwan’s death, Richardson advertised two night stays at the very camp where she was fatally mauled as a reward for anyone who donated $14,000 USD or more to his fundraiser. This contradictory behavior showcases the fact that Richardson’s statement on Megan’s avoidable death at the teeth of his trained lion was made solely to direct blame on her, and avoid damaging ongoing projects he was involved with. Not the least of which was filming the completion of Mia And The White Lion, which also took place on his sanctuary, and also involved a young woman directly interacting with captive lions.

We now know that two young women were intentionally directly interacting with captive lions on Richardson’s Sanctuary, under Richardson’s guidance during the same period of time that a third young woman who was not exposing herself to any danger at all, was ambushed and fatally mauled by one of Richardson’s captive lions which was loose on the Sanctuary grounds.

Interesting that when Richardson lures his captive lions toward a young woman for David Yarrow to photograph, literally dangling meat over that young woman’s head, it’s acceptable to the public. Admirable, even, for them to see photos of Delevingne calmly sitting with her back exposed to a captive lion while Richardson rewards that lion with meat for approaching Delevingne. Someone admired it so much they spent $120,000 to own the photo. Hundreds of others have bought less expensive versions of the photograph. And when Daniah DeVilliers interacts with Richardson’s captive lions, living with them for three full years, calling them to her, and rewarding them with meat, it’s also acceptable, and admirable. Millions have flocked to watch Mia And The White Lion, which was filmed onsite at Richardson’s sanctuary during the same time that Megan van der Zwan was killed there.

But then when a captive lion owned by Richardson, trained by Richardson, and rewarded with meat by Richardson for approaching strangers, and/or performing for cameras, subsequently acts outside of Richardson’s control, and approaches a strange young woman and kills her , it’s entirely the fault of the dead young woman for being “outside the car” even though she was in a supposedly safe camp, nowhere near where Richardson and his lions were supposedly located.

In the aftermath of the fatal mauling of Megan van der Zwan, TAG Heuer announced that it was cancelling the campaign and opening gala stating that “Due to the deeply sad and shocking death at a reserve, which was used as a backdrop to the campaign… We have decided to cancel out of respect for the family of the deceased. The relatives of the woman, rather than business, are our primary concern.”

It sounded sincere, but with many millions future dollars at stake and, already out a scrapped multi-million dollar opening launch, the reality turned out to be much less so. TAG Heuer simply rescheduled their campaign gala (where an exclusive print of Delevingne and Richardson’s lion sold for $120,000 USD) and waited a couple of months to launch the ad campaign. Seven months later, the Maddox Gallery reinstated it’s show of Yarrows photos of the campaign, to much acclaim. Side note, both the Maddox Gallery, and Cara Delevingne fully support Eduardo Serio of Black Jaguar White Tiger, and Maddox has sold Yarrow’s photos of Richardson’s captive lions in order to raise proceeds for BJWT. Yarrow even attended a Maddox event held in his honor wherein one of his photos was auctioned off to raise money for BJWT, and

When asked about her experience working with Kevin Richardson’s captive lions (in an interview after filming for TAG Heuer, but before the fatal mauling of Megan van der Zwan) Cara Delevingne quipped:

“You know, at the end of the day, if a lion had a little nibble on my leg, I think it would be a pretty cool story…”

The members of Captive Wildlife Watchdog, and of Megan van der Zwan’s devastated family would beg to strongly differ, with you on that opinion, Ms. Delevingne.

But thanks to the continued efforts of entities like David Yarrow and Kevin Richardson to mislead the public in such matters, it remains en vogue to fabricate photographs using captive wild animals and then market them as wildlife photography, the sales of which will support the conservation of wild animals. And invariably, entities like Eduardo Serio, Dean Schneider, The Real Tarzann, will continue to follow suite, selling their own brands of fake conservation on the open market.

Only once we start supporting the preservation of wild animals, in wild habitats outside of the capitalism of using captive animals to pose as wild ones, will we be able to hamstring the growing monster of commerce-conservation.

David Yarrow And Captive Trained Animals

David Yarrow, Taking Photos of Wildlife Using Captive Trained Animals

The Kevin Richardson Foundation recently posted an interview with David Yarrow the now-world famous photographer on their website. If you can stomach the sheer pretentiousness of the article it’s worth a read from the standpoint that it provides an excellent example of the carefully misrepresented, misleading, and intentionally partial truths used by entities like Yarrow and their supporters to promote themselves.

The article opens with what is, for anyone who doesn’t know Yarrow’s background, an inspiring recap of how Yarrow managed to Segway his “day job” career into the photography career he’s now so well known for. If one understands Yarrow’s actual pedigree and biography, his own account comes across as an artistically fabricated “living my dream like average folks” byline designed to make Yarrow accessible to “normal folks”. That’s because Yarrow had the fortune (literally) to be born into the Yarrow baronetcy and grew up with all the luxuries, and advantages that being directly connected to the Royals can provide.

The struggling to change careers storyline rings solid with thousands of readers who are struggling to leave jobs they have to hold down for careers they want to participate in, but the reality is that when “the good old days of finance” ended in 2008, David Yarrow was already a multi-millionaire with an estate and could have left his financial position anytime he chose to.

There’s nothing wrong with being born well off, but intentionally presenting yourself as having struggled to embrace a chosen career like people of average income, when you’re a millionaire connected to the Royal family, is in poor taste, at best, outright dishonest more likely

Yarrow seems to have no compunction against providing answers which serve a purpose, rather than being an honest response. When asked in the KRF interview what his most terrifying experience in shooting has been, Yarrow replies:

“‘Terrifying’ is probably an extreme word because as a father to two children, I don’t really ever put myself in a position where I am in jeopardy, as that would be irresponsible and selfish.”

Yet in the published description of Yarrow’s portrait“One Foot On The Ground” Yarrow declares:

“Yes, I am proud that the image is technically perfect when I am quite obviously in harms way, but the image is made by him (the lion) not me.”

One has little choice but to wonder where Yarrow is crafting the lie here. Is it in his recent interview? Born of a desire to look like a responsible, ethical, supporter of conservation? Or was he lying when he drafted the description of “One Foot On The Ground”? Indeed, the image of Yarrow standing steadfast while a magnificent wild lion charges toward him makes the image even more dramatic. And the descriptions of his own photos isn’t the only place Yarrow has stated he intentionally put himself in harms way, contrary to what he states in his interview on the KRF page.

This article from August 2017, says “While Yarrow admits to having put himself in harms way to get close to some animals, including polar bears…” it goes on to discuss Yarrow’s occasional use of remote control cameras. So, again, was Yarrow’s admittance of putting himself in danger untrue? Or is Yarrow’s current interview wherein he insists that he’d never actually put himself in danger because it would be irresponsible the falsehood? All we can know for sure is that one or the other is a lie.

But is the lion captured in such stunning black and white, which Yarrow is so proud of, even though taking it supposedly put him in harms way, actually a wild lion? It’s impossible for the viewer to know. Yarrow has made no bones about his willingness to use captive wild animals trained to perform for the camera, and intentionally manipulate a photo to match his own preconceived design of what the photo should contain.

Whereas artists in the field of photography have long prided themselves on capturing reality within instants of frozen beauty, Yarrow dismisses such endeavors as passé. He’s also described photographs captured using long distance lenses which avoid invading the space of wild animals as being “hackneyed pulp”.

“Ninety-nine per cent of photographs are taken. People take photographs. Whereas I think I make photographs.” Yarrow boasts in this article from January 2019. “I have a preconception in my head already of what I’m going to get, rather than turning up and seeing what’s going to happen.”

Yarrow’s cavalier disregard for capturing photos of wildlife in a wild environments and his preference for instead staging photos that utilize trained, captive wild animals placed in naturalistic settings is something he’s defended without hesitation, such as in this article from May of 2018. Other wildlife photographers, like David Slater (who nearly went bankrupt defending himself in the infamous “monkey selfie” lawsuit) exhibit resignation when it comes to faking their work. According to Slater, “all professional photographers are guilty in some degree” of altering or manipulating photographs or situations. Slater goes on to say “If you try for the genuine shot, you are less likely to be published. That’s why most photographers will push their own ethical boundaries.”

Yarrow, however, doesn’t seem to have ethical boundaries when it comes to creating the pre-designed photographs that have brought him such worldwide acclaim–and so many lucrative price tags. He sees nothing wrong with using trained wolves, cheetahs, lions or other captive wild animal, and argues that how we perceive these manipulations depends on whether or not a picture is framed as wildlife photography or art. “I am an artist. I make pictures rather than take them,” he says. “Nothing crosses the line in the art world. You can superimpose Krakatoa erupting in the background and Darth Vader coming over the hill.”

But if Yarrow insists that anything goes in matters of art, and that photographers are only at fault if they frame manipulated photographs as “wildlife photography” the position appears to be little more than an afterthought, and certainly not one Yarrow himself bothers to attend. In 2016, Yarrow published the book “Wild Encounters, Iconic Photographs Of The World’s Vanishing Animals And Cultures” with proceeds going to Tusk.

Image from Thriftbooks.com

From Yarrow’s own website:

A collection of unparalleled nature photography— spanning seven continents—by one of the world’s foremost photographers. Capturing the splendor and very soul of what remains wild and free in our world through incredibly intimate—close enough to touch—portraits, Wild Encounters chronicles legendary photographer David Yarrow’s photographic exploits in the field. Driven by a passion for sharing and preserving the Earth’s last great wild cultures and species, Yarrow is as much a conservationist as a photographer and artist.

From publicity blurbs for the book:

“From big cats to elephants and indigenous communities, Wild Encounters is a must-have for nature lovers, conservationists, and anyone who is inspired by all that remains wild. Featuring 160 of his most breathtaking photographs, Wild Encounters offers a truly intimate view of some of the world's most compelling—and threatened—species and captures the splendor and very soul of what remains wild and free in our world through portraits that feel close enough to touch.”

From critical reviews of Yarrow’s “Wild Encounters”:

"David Yarrow is one of the virtuosos of black and white wildlife photography….Arranged by the latitude of locale, his dramatic monochromatic photographs of wild and endangered animals appear to leap from the page. –– 2017 National Outdoor Book Award Winner

"Certainly, Wild Encounters is more than up-close wildlife photography, even though that is what stands out. . . . No matter the subject, however, Yarrow has captured what is wild and free and pulled us in for an unforgettable view.” —North American Nature Photography Association

"David Yarrow’s Wild Encounters is a triumph of conservation photography. The result is a triumph of both artistic mastery and emotional affect—a portfolio of compelling, visually arresting pictures that afford us the opportunity to fully grasp both the magnificence of animals in the wild, and the threats they face in a modern world.” — Sierra Magazine

"The haunting image of a female lion staring out from the cover of Wild Encounters: Iconic Photographs of the World’s Vanishing Animals and Cultures (Rizzoli, $75) conveys the immediacy of this volume of 160 photographs of the most vulnerable species and cultures around the world. Renowned wildlife photographer David Yarrow offers stunning and intimate images of elephants, lions, tigers, and bears in their native habitats across six continents, pulled from his two decades of experience in the field. This book clearly is driven by the author’s passion for conservation and highlights the real risks to the continued survival of these animals and their place on the planet. Beautiful and inspirational, this is a great gift book and a reminder of the wonder that can still be found in the world." —Big Sky Journal

These are great reviews of a wildlife photography book, until you realize they’re all describing a book that has an image of a captive bred, hand-raised, and trained to perform lion on the cover of it.

Yep, that’s Kevin Richardson’s Meg strolling along on cue, not a wild lion.

Cover photo from "Wild Encounters" as posted on the Ask Meg Facebook page.

When you understand that the iconic cover image of Yarrow’s self-described book of “nature photography” containing “the very soul of what remains wild” was made using a captive, trained lion, it rather destroys the mythos. When you consider that this image is, as pointed out proudly in Yarrow’s comments on his website, flashes up every our in Time Square, presented as the embodiment of wild lions, the knowledge that it was actually staged with a captive lion that Richardson raised and trained for use in photography, the falsehood takes on an oil-slicked sensation of abused trust. Then you start wondering how many other photos in Yarrow’s book were fabricated using captive animals in pseudo-environments, and how much of the “wildlife” shown isn’t wild at all.

Some photos containing captive animals might be pretty obvious, like the trained wolf striding down the bar top in Montana...

The Wolf of Main Street by David Yarrow. Photograph: David Yarrow Taken from Theguardian.com

Or the model posing with a trained cheetah described in the same article containing the above image. But the true origin of other photographs are impossible for readers to know without honest commentary by Yarrow. The black rhino is attributed only to Mkomazi Game Reserve, and that brings to mind wide expanses of African territory. But we know that the rhinos living on Mkomazi are actually confined to a small, tightly controlled, fenced and protected area due to poaching, and because of this, they’re habituated to human presence. Furthermore, the rhino sanctuary area at Mkomazi isn’t even open to the public, meaning that Yarrow was taken “behind the scenes” to photograph these carefully guarded and confined animals.

Th polar bears in Yarrow’s book were photographed on Barter Island, Alaska, an area where the locals make their own living taking tourists out for polar bear encounters, and where the polar bears are so habituated to human presence that they view them as part of the environment.

Other questions are raised when Yarrow describes a photo on his website differently than in other publications. Many of the commentary attached to lion photos discuss Richardson and his lions at great length but stop short of actually saying the photo is of a captive lion and was staged. Other photos of lions have little write up, but some are listed as having been taken at Dinokeng where Richardson’s sanctuary is located. In “Wild Encounters” multiple lion photos actually contain Richardson’s captive, trained lions. Black leopard are also a featured animal, and one which we know lives on Richardson’s sanctuary, but whether or not the animal photographed is Richardson’s is not clear.

None of these facts make the photos less beautiful, but the do make them all subtly told lies to the people who pick up a book titled “Wild Encounters” which has been advertised as “nature photography” containing “the very soul of what remains wild” and mistakenly believe they’re looking at wild animals in wild spaces.

Taking photos of captive animals who are either trained to interact with humans, or habituated to human presence and mixing them in with photos of actual wild animals, in the wild, and calling it a book on wildlife photography is a marketing lie contrived to sell a romanticized vision. Yarrow, who insisted in a 2018 interview that a photographer was only at fault if they presented a posed photo as wildlife photography instead of art photography, chose to intentionally advertise staged photos made using trained animals as ‘wildlife photography’ with the express purpose of misleading those he was marketing the book to. Yarrow’s website also contains dozens of staged photos alongside photos of actual wild animals all of them under the category “Wildlife”.

As we already noted, proceeds of “Wild Encounters” went to the Tusk, not Yarrow, this isn’t about making money.

It’s about ethics and integrity.

How can you lie to the public in order to teach them about an issue? If you’re willing to lie, and intentionally mislead the public about what you are showing them, how can they believe your word on what you’re saying?

The public at large is already being pulled in multiple directions with the bombardment of “special bonds” and highly clickable photos and videos of supposed animal champions interacting with captive wild animals, Kevin Richardson among them. Yarrow’s lavish, and galvanizing photography seems to offer the public the precise opposite of this click-bait human/animal interactions, showing, instead, the rugged beauty of “the very soul of what remains wild”. Yet tragically, this is just another carefully constructed lie, since many of Yarrow’s photos don’t show wild animals at all, but captive bred and trained to perform animals.

But then, for Yarrow, photography is just another business, and conservation is just another commodity to be bought and sold on the trade floor of public consumption.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

When Animal Exploiters Try To Silence Their Opposition

This post is going to be very long, dry (okay, maybe more like filled with dry wit) and full of legal information. We apologize in advance for that. But through this note, CWW hopes to give our readers a better insight into the constant fight we wage in reporting on exploiters like Doc Antle, Eduardo Serio, Dean Schneider, Kevin Richardson, etc. and the lengths to which exploiters like them will go to try and stop us from providing the public with facts that counter their claims and lies.

Last weekend CWW posted a Note on Facebook about Doc Antle’s Rare Species Fund, which had been promoted on the Faulkner Instagram page. Specifically Faulkner had claimed that the Rare Species Fund saved animals and returned them to their natural habitat. (It doesn’t) Within a few days of making the post, we received notice that a DMCA complaint had been filed against us, and our Note had been removed because Facebook complies with the notice and takedown procedures defined in section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

If you don’t understand the DMCA, copyright laws, or the fair use doctrine, this seems like a straightforward case of CWW using something we didn’t have a right to use, and us getting called on it.

But it’s not.

To begin, let’s explore the primary terms involved here.

Copyright.

Copyright law grants authors and artists the exclusive right to make and sell copies of their works, the right to create derivative works, and the right to perform or display their works publicly. These exclusive rights are subject to a time limit, and generally expire 70 years after the author's death.

Fair Use Doctrine

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. This includes screen captures and screenshots.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet (In a very simplified nutshell)

Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512(c) Also referred to as the “Safe Harbor” provision.

Section 512 of the DMCA established a system for copyright owners and online entities to address online infringement, including limitations on liability for compliant service providers to help foster the growth of internet-based services. Congress intended for copyright owners and internet service providers to cooperate to detect and address copyright infringements. To qualify for protection from infringement liability, a service provider must fulfill certain requirements, generally consisting of implementing measures to expeditiously address online copyright infringement.

So, in the simplest of terms, if you make something, you own the copyrights to that something, unless someone uses it via the Fair Use Doctrine for the purposes defined by that Doctrine. If you use copyrighted things outside of the Fair Use Doctrine (like republishing someone’s book, or posting their artwork and calling it your own) the actual copyright holder can lodge a DMCA complaint against you, because copyrights.

Under the DMCA section 512(c) sharing sites like Facebook are exempt from all liability associated with copyright infringement if they immediately remove content that has a complaint lodged against it.

It’s very important to understand that within the entire ecosystem we’ve just described the only part that Facebook plays is as a sharing site which participates within “Safe Harbor” provision of the DMCA, and that as a participant of the “Safe Harbor” provision, the only thing Facebook needs to do, is remove content and inform the person who posted it that it was removed. That’s it.

It’s also vital to understand that Facebook’s compliance with the “Safe Harbor” provision, and the removal of content in no way verifies that the removed content was actually infringing on anyone’s copyright. The “Safe Harbor” provision doesn’t require participants to remove only content that constitutes copyright infringement, it requires participants to remove any content which has had a complaint lodged against it regardless of whether that complaint is valid or false.

One of the most contended issues with the “Safe Harbor” provision, which has been debated, and researched by numerous groups, is the fact that complying with it in order to be exempt from liability it constitutes “prior restraint” something that is prohibited by the First Amendment.

Prior restraint is what happens when speech is punished before there has been any adjudication to prove that it deserves to be punished.

The reason the First Amendment prohibits prior restraint is that it does no good to punish speech, such as by removing it, if the First Amendment would otherwise protect it – once it has been removed the damage will have already been done. In the case of the “Safe Harbor” provision, Facebook (or other sharing sites) remove content which has a DMCA complaint lodged against it before anyone, including the complainant ever proves it actually needs to be removed. They’re not required by law to ever vet a DMCA complaint at all.

This means that an entity like CWW–who uses various forms of media to critique, report on, educate about, and provide commentary on groups which exploit, abuse, and damage captive wild animals under the Fair Use Doctrine–can be illegally censured by the very abusers and exploiters they’re making a stand against.

And because of how the DMCA complaint system works, accusers are permitted to simply lodge complaints without validating them. It’s up to innocent victims of those complaints, like CWW, or those who are the victim of false or incorrectly made complaints, to send a counter-notice which includes consent to the jurisdiction of a federal court just to try and establish that they are, in fact, innocent of any copyright infringement.

To make matters worse, much of the time, completely legal content (which CWW’s Note was) is automatically removed because sharing sites like Facebook utilize automated takedown systems, which do nothing but receive complaints, and automatically remove the linked content. This has created an ongoing issue with poorly reported complaints, or false complaints being honored, while legally posted content is removed.

So what happened with CWW’s Rare Species Fund Note?

On Monday night, we received this notice from Facebook:

Followed by this warning:

The key points in this complaint (shown in the middle photo) are that the “Rights Owner” is listed as Nicholas Balestracci and that the “Copyrighted Work” is listed as “A photo”.

As you can see in the above screenshot, we were directed to contact Nicholas Balestracci, the complaining party, directly in order to resolve the issue. Considering that a minimum of 45 photos had been used in our Note about the Rare Species Fund, and no one had contacted CWW through any vector about the erroneous use of their material, we suspected that the complaint had been lodged with the purpose of having the entire article removed, rather than just “a photo”.

Nevertheless, we directly emailed Nicholas Balestracci as we’d been directed by Facebook to do.

We received a quick reply, which gloriously showcases how animal exploiters like Doc Antle, and those who work for him, abuse the laws meant to protect others in order to stop entities like CWW from reporting on, and educating the public about, their lies and damaging behavior.

This is the reply we received from Nicholas Balestracci (copied and pasted verbatim below, rather than shown in a screenshot, because, well, Mr. Balestracci’s accusations over screenshots is why this post is being made)

To whom it may concern,

I am the official photographer for the Myrtle Beach Safari. All of the photos taken AT the Myrtle Beach Safari are produced by me or my team. I do not have your “post” in a screenshot so I can not point out specifically. However almost every screenshot your post contained of our (Myrtle Beach Safari, Doc Antle, etc.) social media posts and other photos you obtained through the internet are taken by me or produced by my team. I am either tagged in those photos/posts or have posted the photo myself in some format.

If you continue to post ANY of my photographs, videos, etc. then I will continue to report.

I do not want my photos used for the reason you are using them.

Please DO NOT respond or contact me again for any reason.

Thank you,

Mr. Balestracci

Anyone with even minimal legal knowledge will already be laughing at the content of this reply, but let’s go ahead and unpack this response in detail.

“I am the official photographer for the Myrtle Beach Safari. All of the photos taken AT the Myrtle Beach Safari are produced by me or my team.”

Whoooo-boy. Okay.

Firstly, Nicholas Balestracci, as per the “About” section of his own Facebook page, has been the “official photographer for the Myrtle Beach Safari” since early April 2018. Yep, the guy who filed a DMCA complaint for “a photo” from among 45 photos, and who claimed that “All” photos “taken AT the Myrtle Beach Safari” are copyrighted by him personally, has only been taking photos at MBS for 10 months, according to his own timeline.

Secondly, the only visual indication of where any of the photos we utilized might have been taken is the “Location” shown on the various posts, something that can be added and edited multiple times, and does not have any legal obligation to be the actual location depicted in the post. In addition, there were a minimum of 45 photos used in our post, many of which were not labeled as MBS, and some of which were taken at a different facility located on an entirely separate continent.

Third, no, not all the photos taken “AT” MBS are produced by Mr. Balestracci, or his team. As just mentioned, Mr. Balestracci has been employed at MBS for 10 months (per his own biography)–not even one calendar year–so again, no, not every photo taken “AT” MBS was produced by Mr. Balestracci or his team. Prior to April 2018 Mr. Balestracci was not even employed at MBS to be taking photos there.

Fourth, just for readers’ reference the Instagram pages listed below, are just the ones we know about, which are directly associated with MBS, and for which Mr. Balestracci is essentially claiming to own copyrights for all visible content within.

@Rarespeciesfund

@Docantle

@Kodyantle

@tawny.thetiger

@Myrtlebeachsafari

@Tiger411

@china.york

@TheRealTarzann

@gibbonmom

@mokshabybee_tigers

@zooinfo411

@tigershakti

Furthermore, the two sites listed below have shared videos taken at MBS, without referencing or crediting Balestracci, yet Balestracci seems to have no issue with these “copyright infringements”.

@whathapndng

@worldstar

He even promoted one of them on his own Facebook page, on January 26th, linking to it, and cheerfully announcing that the video he took (but for which he is not credited) made World Star! The video, which shows The Real Tarzann playing with a baboon, has garnered over half a million views.

Guess that indignant copyright rage he had going on is situational.

“I do not have your “post” in a screenshot so I can not point out specifically.”

Wait, what?

We’ve by now established that DMCA complaints heavily favor the complainant. But even so, lodging a DMCA complaint is not *quite* as simple as writing a sentence or two to the host website.

In order to lodge a DMCA complaint, you have to (or you’re *supposed to*) provide detailed information about where the work appears with your permission, include original copies, where it’s being infringed upon, contact details, etc.

Facebook uses an online form for DMCA complaints–though they encourage users to contact the person they feel is infringing on their copyright before filing a DMCA complaint, in order to exhaust all venues of settlement before engaging in a DMCA complaint. Mr. Balestracci opted to skip that step and go straight to filing against CWW. The requirements for filing a DMCA complaint with Facebook’s online form has been directly copied and pasted here:

• Your complete contact information (full name, mailing address and phone number).*

• A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed.

• A description of the content on our site that you claim infringes your copyright.

• Information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material on our site. The easiest way to do this is by providing web addresses (URLs) leading directly to the allegedly infringing content.

• A declaration that:

• You have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted content described above, in the manner you have complained of, is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

• The information in your notice is accurate.

• Under penalty of perjury, you are the owner or authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive copyright that is allegedly infringed.

• Your electronic signature or physical signature.

• *Please note that we regularly provide your name, contact information and the contents of your report to the person who posted the content you are reporting. If you are an authorized representative submitting a report, we provide the name of the organization or client that owns the right in question. You may wish to provide a professional or business email address for this reason.

So Mr. Balestracci took the time to provide all of that information and lodge a DMCA complaint, but in his email reply to CWW he claimed that because he didn’t have a screenshot directly in front of him, he couldn’t tell us which photo in our post was copyrighted by him.

But it gets even better.

“However almost every screenshot your post contained of our (Myrtle Beach Safari, Doc Antle, etc.) social media posts and other photos you obtained through the internet are taken by me or produced by my team. I am either tagged in those photos/posts or have posted the photo myself in some format.”

Firstly, “almost every screenshot” was not cited on the DMCA complaint which Mr. Balestracci filed against CWW. “A photo” was listed.

Secondly, “almost” isn’t even a legally binding term, and “almost” is not the same as “a”.

Thirdly, as we’ve established, no, all photos taken “of” MBS are not, in fact, taken by you, or produced by your team. As per the biography listed on your own photography website, you are currently twenty-two years old. So, for example, this photo of Kody Antle as a three or four year old was not taken by you, nor your team, as you weren’t even born in the mid-80s when that photo was taken. And if Kody Antle put up a photograph taken when he was a child, on his own Instagram page, you don’t get to claim the copyright to it.

Fourth, nope, sorry honey, you aren’t tagged in most of the photos used, and as we just mentioned regarding time frame, you did not post them in “some format” from all the various pages either attributed to MBS or Instagram profiles which belong to the thousands of guests who have visited MBS. Nor are you tagged or credited in all of the 11,000+ Instagram search results under #rarespeciesfund.

POP QUIZ FOR READERS!

Mr. Balestracci stated in his letter that he was the “official photographer” for Myrtle Beach Safari and that our “post contained of our (Myrtle Beach Safari, Doc Antle, etc.) social media posts” so does that mean the DMCA complaint was made on behalf of Myrtle Beach Safaris, and that MBS’s copyrights were being infringed upon by our use?

How closely have you been reading?

Answer:

NOPE!

This DMCA complaint was NOT lodged on behalf of MBS, and therefore the copyrights in question are NOT copyrights held by MBS, or Doc Antle, even though Mr. Balestracci’s email reply clearly implies that all photos taken at MBS or posted on accounts run by MBS (including Doc Antle’s) are copyrighted by Mr. Balestracci himself.

Confused?

Details matter.

On the formal DMCA complaint Facebook sent us, the Rights Owner was listed as Nicholas Balestracci. Contact for Mr. Balestracci (which we aren’t going to publish) was the email address associated with Balestracci’s personal photography business website, Nick B Photos.

Facebook’s online form for DMCA complaints specifies “If you are an authorized representative submitting a report, we provide the name of the organization or client that owns the right in question.” But within the DMCA complaint lodged against CWW, the only entity listed is Nicholas Balestracci. And the only email provided was directly to Nicholas Balestracci’s photography company, Nick B Photos.

Myrtle Beach Safaris was not named.

Doc Antle was not named.

No email for Myrtle Beach Safari was provided.

No email for Doc Antle was provided.

Therefore the Mr. Balestracci lodged a DMCA complaint on behalf of himself, and his personal photography company, not Myrtle Beach Safari or Doc Antle, and any copyrights owned by MBS are completely irrelevant to this entire situation.

Basically, everything Mr. Balestracci is insinuating and claiming in his email response to CWW, all of his assertions that any photo taken from MBS social media profiles, and any photo taken “AT” MBS, are owned by him and his “team”, are completely invalid.

Only a photo taken by Mr. Balestracci himself, and to which Mr. Balestracci owns the exclusive copyrights, is even eligible to be the “A photo” he named in his DMCA complaint. And none of the photos utilized in CWW’s Note were taken from Mr. Balestracci’s photography website.

Having permission to create and disseminate media on the behalf of an employer does not equate to owning the exclusive copyrights to that media. Mr. Balestracci, by his own wording, produces content (photos, videos, etc.) as an employee of T.I.G.E.R.S. Myrtle Beach Safaris (full name of the institute) which was founded by, and is directed by, and owned by Mahamayavi Bhagavan “Doc” Antle. Therefore Doc Antle would actually retain sole proprietorship to the content created for all of his companies. Mr. Balestracci might well have rights to utilize certain photos he took or content he created, for his own purposes, but his rights would be second to those of his employer, Doc Antle and T.I.G.E.R.S. Myrtle Beach Safari.

If that were case it would actually eliminate every photo in our post from the purview of the DMCA complaint that Mr. Balestracci filed against CWW.

Now, here’s the part that will cause anyone who supports what CWW is doing, and what we stand for, to spit coffee and curse.

None of what we just explained matters as far as DMCA complaints against us go.

Facebook’d automated system for fielding DMCA complaints doesn’t vet the complaints. It doesn’t research them. It doesn’t question them.

It receives a complaint, and it removes the content listed therein. Period.

Facebook automatically removes content named in DMCA complaints even if the complaint is false, and the complainant is intentionally lodging the complaint in order to have an article they don’t agree with removed.

Yes, CWW could send a counter-notice, to the DMCA complaint lodged against us, but doing so means we would have to, for lack of a better description, invite Mr. Balestracci to sue us, if he chooses to continue claiming we infringed on his copyrights (which we did not) as well as provide him with court jurisdiction information so that he can readily file a suit against us if he chooses to. Aside from the repugnance of asking a victim to help their accuser further attack them, it’s simply not worth our effort pursue a counter-notice. Even if Mr. Balestracci folded (doubtful, considering the arrogance and self-importance involved with him attempting to claim copyright ownership of over 11,000 photos pertaining to MBS, by whom he’s been employed for only 10 months) and he gave consent for our Note to be reposted, it would take an average of 14 business days for Facebook to repost our content. It’s easier just to repost it ourselves, and then take the opportunity to give our readers a window into what happened.

And filing a counter-notice would probably be pointless anyway, from the standpoint that Mr. Balestracci made it quite clear in his email response to us that he would continue to file DMCA complaints for ANY photo, video or other media that we use which shows Myrtle Beach Safaris, which he continued to refer to with the term “my”.

“If you continue to post ANY of my photographs, videos, etc. then I will continue to report.”

Since Facebook’s automated DMCA complaint system does not verify the complaints lodged, it will simply continue to remove our content every time Mr. Balestracci files a DMCA complaint, even though he doesn’t actually own the copyrights he’s claiming we’re infringing upon. Yes, this is illegal of him, but because of the manner in which DMCA complaints are handled, the only way someone like Mr. Balestracci will be held legally accountable for his behavior is if someone like CWW expends the money and effort to pursue legal action against him. And the fact is, he just isn’t worth the bother. In the grand scheme of things, he’s just another spoiled, self-important young man who thinks he can rearrange the universe to suite himself.

Mr. Balestracci explained his own actions in filing the DMCA complaint against CWW in his email response to us, and his reasoning unsurprisingly has nothing to do with copyrights, or our legal right to use media of Myrtle Beach Safari through the Fair Use Doctrine.

“I do not want my photos used for the reason you are using them.”

This entire chain of events started with a young man posting incorrect facts, misleading information, and ignorant content on his Instagram post because he refused “to listen to leadership he didn’t respect” and it’s arrived at its current state because another young man doesn’t “want my photos used for the reason you are using them.”

This is what CWW is fighting against. A public who not only doesn’t want to know the truth, but also doesn’t want their own facts handed back to them in support of the truth they’re trying to deny. Mr. Balestracci doesn’t have to “want” us to use media from MBS’s social media accounts to show that Doc Antle’s Rare Species Fund involves cub petting and pay-to-play schemes, but he legally can’t stop us from utilizing media associated with MBS through Fair Use Doctrine, when we’re reporting the truth about MBS. Never mind the fact that he’s asserting that every photo on any site that portrays Doc Antle’s Myrtle Beach Safari is exclusively his property.

Unfortunately, since it was created in 1998, the DMCA has only become more, and more of a quagmire, especially with the introduction of, and poorly overseen, systems of automated complaint and take-down used by the majority of sharing websites like Facebook. Add to that the fact that even those who file counter-notices, and bring lawsuits agains those who have falsely accused them of infringement get little or no justice, even with new laws which are supposed to curb false DMCA complaints, and it’s a shitshow, at best. Some even argue that the DMCA is unconstitutional on its face because it interferes with free speech. The damage to the First Amendment, and the destruction of Fair Use Doctrine caused by the DMCA has been studied by Law entities, and covered by multiple scholarly sites. The abuse of the DMCA enjoyed by entities who lodge DMCA complaints simply to get content they don’t like removed, has been widely and repeatedly discussed.

The truth will out in the end, though. It always does.

CWW is not going to stop posting about Myrtle Beach Safari, or Doc Antle, or the lies, abuse, and misleading fake information they sell to the ignorant public, simply because a kid with a camera gets his nose out of joint and throws a temper tantrum. At the end of the day, Mr. Nicholas Balestracci is the one who comes out looking like an ignorant ass, attempting to claim copyright ownership of any content posted on more than a dozen social media accounts, of any age, at any time, along with more than 11,000 Instagram search results.

CWW is going to keep doing what we do, while exploiters like Mr. Balestracci are going to keep doing everything they can, legal or not, to try and stop us. Let them try. We’re not the ones breaking the law here.

Headline Image attributed to Pat_S on TammyBruce.com

Dean Schneider And Lion ALERT

Dean Schneider Helps Showcase The Exploitation of Lion ALERT

Dean Schneider has proof that captive bred lions can be released back into the wild!

Just kidding, that’s a lie.

It was a lie when we typed it just now, and it was a lie when Dean Schneider said it on his video.

Dean hasn’t seen any proof that captive bred lions have been successfully released into the wild.

No one has.

What Dean’s actually done, is take a note from The Real Tarzann, and visited an exploitive breeding facility which presents itself as being part of conservation. Readers might remember Tarzann “saving” rhinos from poaching a couple of months ago. It caused his follower count to fly up to the millions. The rhinos involved weren’t wild, though. They were owned by private rhino ranchers. The same ranchers who are lobbying to reinstate the trade of rhino horn because they have warehouses of horn harvested from their cattle rhinos, and they need to be able to sell it somewhere. Yeah, nothing is ever as good as it seems with shysters like Tarzann and Schneider.

In Schneider’s case, he paid a visit (probably literally) to Lion ALERT/Antelope Park in Zimbabwe. For those inside lion conservation, Lion ALERT has been a millstone of exploitation for over a decade now, slickly presented, with just enough scientific lingo that anyone without a solid grasp of ecology, biology, and conservation, buys into their bullshit hook line and sinker. It could be suggested that Eduardo Serio might have studied Lion ALERT before founding Black Jaguar White Tiger. After all, Lion ALERT has 4 Stages for it’s captive raised lions to be reintroduced into the wild. Just like BJWT, however, Lion ALERT has never actually used all of its much-discussed “stages”. Just like Serio’s pets always stall out at “Stage 2”, none of Lion ALERT’s cats have ever made it beyond Stage 2. Not in over ten years.

If you go looking for the history of Lion ALERT, don’t be surprised if you can’t find a concise timeline. That’s because they’ve shuffled themselves around like a huge live version of the shell game. Be aware that Lion ALERT and Antelope Park attempt to keep distance between themselves but are indelibly linked and partnered. Lion Alert was founded in 2005 by Andrew Connolly. Connolly had already been working in the African tourism industry, arranging animal encounters for tourists since 1998, and in 1999 he developed the “African Lion Rehabilitation & Release into the Wild Program.” That last sounds pretty awesome, but when you look at the actuality, it just represents multiple “walk with lions” and “cub petting” ventures which all claim that the cubs being held by tourists will later be released into the wild. Because we’ve never heard that one before….

Since it was founded in 2005, Lion ALERT has bred a whole bunch of lions, hosted thousands of tourists to handle, play with and walk with those lions, and has released precisely zero lions into the wild. Yes, the lions seen in Dean’s video seem to be out in open areas, but Dean himself states that the lions are in a 200 hectare enclosure.

To give readers some perspective on this, 200 hectares is about 494 acres. Central Park, in New York City is 840 square acres. So look at this photo:

Now, cut the Park in half, and you have the area of land Dean is referring to where, according to Dean, captive bred lions have been successfully released into the “wild” and are living and hunting and breeding in the “wild.”

Yes, it’s all about spinning reality to sound like a good lie. Lion ALERT places breeding pairs into larger enclosures and allows them to breed. So does Ukutula, Lion Park, and every other predator encounter in South Africa. It doesn’t mean that the captive bred lions are living in the wild, and it doesn’t mean they’ve been successfully released into the wild. For every snazzy publicity stunt like this where Lion ALERT is touted as leading the way in lions conservation, there are dozens of issues spanning from shortly after they were founded, to the present.

There have been situations of selling surplus lions as covered in this 2008 post (prepare to read a little, there are multiple responses from the involved parties)

Please note that the statement issued in reply to an article criticizing ALERT, made by the PR Manager of Antelope Park (where ALERT is situated) states that:

“No lion from Antelope Park has ever been, and never will be, intentionally sold for canned hunting.”

This is basic PR maneuvering. There is no actual promise that lions who have been sold won’t end up in the canned hunting industry, there’s just the promise that the part won’t intentionally sell them into canned hunting. The PR manager goes on to make a point of how the export documents has a pre-condition declaring that the lions could not be used for canned hunting, and that they were “monitored by the relevant wildlife authorities” to assure the provisions of this sale were upheld.

What the PR doesn’t clarify is what happened to the lions after ALERT’s Antelope Park sold them. The only stipulations involved that first sale, and there was no clause forbidding the receiver from turning around and immediately selling the lions to various canned hunting outfits. This is what’s known as the middleman highway. So long as ALERT can declare that they, personally, have never sold lions into canned hunting, they can state that they don’t support the industry. But the truth is, dozens of their homebred lions could well be hanging on the walls of trophy hunters. Once lions are sold to a middleman, they stop being ALERT’s problem.

There are numerous other articles informed by lion conservation experts which repeatedly point out the fact that Lion ALERT literally breeds lions to use in tourist petting schemes, then places the lions in “Stages” which it claims will end in wild release. According to Lion ALERT, it utilizes 4 Stages:

Stage 1: Around 3 months and upwards until 18 months old: the cubs are taken on walks in the bush to help them become familiar with their natural surroundings. At 18 months to 2½ years human contact is removed and they are given the opportunity to hone their hunting skills by taking part in Night and Day Encounters in a safe and secure environment (fenced off, no humans).

Stage 2: The lions are released in a pride into a large enclosure where they can start to live as a wild pride, hunting and fending for themselves. They are closely monitored for research purposes; there is no human contact or intervention.

Stage 3: The pride is relocated to a larger area, where they will spend the rest of their lives. This area is big enough to have many different species in it, including competitive ones. In this stage, the pride breeds cubs which will experience no human intervention.

Stage 4: Cubs born in Stage 3 will be raised by the pride in a totally natural environment, and when old enough, can be relocated into those areas of Africa that need them.

The problems here are numerous. For one, these stages sound good, but “Stage 1” starts with cubs that are 3 months old, without explaining where those cubs come from. They’re bred onsite, but that detail is strategically left out because admitting to breeding lions in captivity is bad for business. Then there’s the fact that in ten years, Lion ALERT has never gotten any lions beyond “Stage 2” where Dean filmed them. As we’ve already established, “Stage 2 is half the size of Central Park in New York City. And Dean calls the cubs there “wild born” but according to Lion ALERT’s own website, only the cubs born in Stage 3 will be “raised by the pride in a totally natural environment” and will eventually be released into the wild. But if the cubs in Dean’s video are in “Stage 4” (which is where Lion ALERT says cubs destined for the wild will be raised) that would mean that “Stage 4” the “totally natural environment” is only half the size of Central Park. The other option, of course, is that the cubs Dean is calling “wild born” are just cubs that were born onsite, and which will later be used to breed more animals, and/or sold off to middlemen and end up who knows where. Neither option has anything to do with functional lion conservation.

And experts agree with that fact.

This screenshot showcases just a handful of the problems experts have with Lion ALERT. Yes, we underlined a few pointed sentences which specify that no captive raised lions have ever successfully been released into the wild. Because, you know, it’s nice when experts back up the facts we’ve presented that people just don’t want to acknowledge.

You can read the very long, but very informative thread from whence the above screenshot was taken here.

There is only one “scientific” paper associated with Lion ALERT and it was written by one of their own staff back in 2013. Furthermore, the article only discusses the proposal of a framework for the release of captive bred lions, it doesn’t document any actual release.

There’s even evidence that Lion ALERT has intentionally thwarted screenings of Blood Lions because BL shows that breeding lions for tourism is not functional conservation.

The rest of these articles all raise the same concerns and issues over and over again, all pointing out that Lion ALERT is just another breeding facility with better PR to create facade of lion conservation. Spend some time researching Lion ALERT for yourself. Pay close attention to dates and details, however, as multiple articles put out by Lion ALERT itself, or supported by them, which praise ALERT discuss the fact that “next year” lions are due to be released into the wild. The problem is, these articles range in date from around 2013-2018, and all of them state that Lion ALERT is planning on releasing captive bred lions into the wild “next year”. Which, of course, never happens.

Nice going, Dean. You helped showcase fellow exploiters very nicely there. Well done.

The Gift Of Education

The Gift Of Education, And The Bravery To Use It

On the eve of Christmas (for those who celebrate Christmas) CWW thought it would be fitting to do a sort of holiday gift post focused on giving the gift of education and the bravery to use that education in defense of the world around us.

Earlier this month the conservation world was shocked and outraged when the US and Russia chose to align themselves with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during climate talks at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The four countries then contrived to prevent the landmark 1.5C Report from being openly “welcomed” as fact to be considered in making future policies. Instead they suggested that the 1.5C Report merely be “noted” as existing. This allows such major powers to brush the gravity of climate change aside and continue to feed the public misinformation about it, while continuing to further their own agendas.

Although the delegates in attendance voiced their concern, saying that the unexpected development was “very frustrating” and “troubling” they stopped short of completely condemning the actions of their opposers. With only five days to establish a rulebook for the Paris agreement focus fell on Poland who would chair the final week of the meeting. The motion to “welcome” the IPCC 1.5C report instead of merely “noting” it could not pass with the current opposition. Poland’s vote, however, could make the difference and so delegates hoped to curry favor with that country and gain its support.

Even larger, however, than the issue of having world leaders choose to ignore hard science in favor of personal preferences, is the choice of those who have provided and accepted that science–those with the education to know that what the report contains is absolute truth–to not publicly take a hardline stance against those unwilling to accept that truth. The fate of our planet and it inhabitants literally depend on the willingness of these scientists and leaders to confront those who would try and ignore the truth, and when that confrontation doesn’t happen, when the only people who can speak up against truth-deniers remain silent, then the only voice left for the public to hear and cling to is the voice which is telling them lies.

Nowhere is this vacuum of silence more deafening than in the arena of animal conservation. In a world where the human population is booming while animal populations dwindle, truth should be the only thing that matters. Not making friends. Not giving old colleagues a free pass for questionable actions. Not allowing issues to go unaddressed in exchange for support which will allow you to do good elsewhere.

The truth is what separates those determined to protect the animals we share this earth with, and those who would profit off the illusion of protecting them.

In two days Kevin Richardson’s new movie, Mia And The White Lion will be released all across France, and after that elsewhere throughout the world. Despite that CWW has repeatedly addressed the endless problems with this film, moral and else wise that plague literally every facet of it, no other organization that opposes handling lions, and petting cubs has stepped up to point out that everything Richardson is doing is wrong. Nor had any other group made any statement about the fact that the movie, its production, and its current promotion is inextricably tangled with outright lies and misinformation that is astronomically damaging to the plight of both wild and captive wild lions.

Nevertheless, we persist, to spin a currently hot schtick.

In two days, the silence created by the groups, and foundations who have failed to publicly speak out about this movie beforehand will be filled by the fallacies, lies, and misinformation cobbled together into the fantasy that is Mia And The White Lion. And those fallacies, lies and misinformation will then be soaked up by the spongy minds of children everywhere–which is the very intention of the movie, as stated by both the director, Gilles de Maistre, and Kevin Richardson himself. And just as intentional as their goal of connecting with children is their intent in shaping and controlling what information they convey with their movie.

Photo from de Maistre's Instagram taken at one of the early screenings of his movie. Note that the majority of this audience is comprised of children about the same age as the character of Mia.

Much has been claimed by supporters of Richardson, but the Lion Whisperer’s own actions speak far more loudly than the idealistic defenses offered by his fans.

For example, the official plot synopsis, approved and released by those responsible for the movie–Richardson and de Maistre–suggests that captive born and raised lions can simply be released into the wild to live freely as wild lions.

From IMDb:

“Distraught by the thought that Charlie could be in harm, Mia decides to run away with him. The two friends set out on an incredible journey across the South African savanna in search of another land where Charlie can live out his life in freedom.”

From Cineuropa:

“Distraught by the thought that Charlie could be in harm, Mia decides to run away leaving the farm and her family behind. The two set off on an epic adventure across the wild African savanna in search for another land where Charlie can live out his life safe and free.”

From Unifrance:

“Distraught by the thought that Charlie could be in harm, Mia decides to run away leaving the farm and her family behind. The two set off on an epic adventure across the wild African savanna in search for another land where Charlie can live out his life safe and free.”

From the official trailer on Youtube released by Galatee Films:

“Distraught by the thought that Charlie could be in harm, Mia decides to run away leaving the farm and her family behind. The two set off on an epic adventure across the wild African savanna in search for another land where Charlie can live out his life safe and free.”

The same synopsis again, and again, each ending with the romanticized–and completely untrue–suggestion that all Mia needs to do to save her pet lion is to run away then release him into the wild.

This is but one of the grossly problematic lies on which Mia And The White Lion is based, lies which could have, and should have, been sharply and immediately addressed by reputable conservation entities who are concerned with trying to save wild lions. We must already combat the naive ideas that captive animals can be turned loose into the wild. We must already combat the idea that breeding lions in captivity can somehow save wild lions. We must already combat the idea that having special bonds with captive wild animals makes it okay to interact with them.

Screenshot taken from one of the many articles touting Mia And The White Lion (link below) Note the statement at the top that Charlie, a captive bred lion can be "returned" to the wild. Meanwhile, the accompanying movie still show that Charlie is, in fact, a pet, and is raised like one, in the house, on the table, and playing with the children.

And Richardson’s movie does nothing but reinforce these falsehoods we are already fighting against. Such incorrect and fictionalized ideals could have, and should have been publicly and promptly struck down in no uncertain terms, and the reality presented to the general public.

Another photo from the above linked article. Note the copyright (intentionally captured here) which lists Richardson as a holder of the copyright to this image, indicating that it was taken on the grounds of his sanctuary and is his property.

But other conservation organizations have said nothing to counter Richardson’s farcical “anti-canned hunting” movie. So on December 26th, thousands of children are going to view a movie that tells them the way to save captive lions is to release them from their cages and enclosures and let them run free. And they’re likely going to believe that it’s already been done in real life, since many recent articles and blurbs have begun stating that the movie is based on “real events” or inspired by “true events” implying that at some point there was a lion who loved a girl, and a girl who returned that lion to the wild.

This is, of course a complete lie.

There was never a girl living on a lion farm who ran away with her lion to set it free. What there was only a director who happily walked with lions in Africa and then realized after the fact that he’d been duped by lion breeders.

Photo of de Maistre originally posted on the movie website, which has now been deleted.

Now-deleted photo of de Maistre with lions.

Another photo from de Maistre's lion walking, which he stated inspired the making of Mia And The White Lion

After realizing that he’d been lied to (he never actually explains how he learned the truth) de Maistre decided to make a movie (based on a screenplay written by his wife) about a young girl raising a lion as her pet, and then running away with it to return it to the wild. Because somehow that, he decided, would solve the issue of captive breeding, canned hunting, and cub petting.

Richardson has also persisted in stating that he, himself, is responsible for opening the eyes of the public to the grotesque realities of cub petting and canned lion hunting. Richardson, who still claims that he remained ignorant of the truth for more than a decade while he was employed by Lion Park, which bred lions like rabbits for the public to play with and hold, and then sold older animals to hunting lots. Richardson has been widely quoted from a 2014 interview with 60 Minutes when in reference to the claim that Lion Park and others have stated that their older lions go to “good homes”, Richardson replied:

“Well, the question I have is where are these good homes? Because I'd like to visit a few of those good homes myself, and maybe even some of my cats could go to these good homes. The reality is there aren't any.”

Well, the question CWW has is if that’s the response Richardson gave for such claims, then where, for ten entire years, did Richardson think those good homes were? Because nearly a decade after the fact he’s still claiming that he had no idea Lion Park was selling lions to canned hunts, so just where did Richardson think the hundreds of cubs he’d help breed over his years at the Park were going?

Richardson has participated in cub petting, and supporting canned hunting literally since his career began, using his interactions with his own lions–and the cubs of some of those lions–to garner attention and headlines.

One of the interactions which gained Richardson considerable attention, when he went in with a lioness and her cubs. However, that lioness had been removed from her own mother by Richardson while he was working at Lion Park, and then once grown, she was bred repeatedly to produce more cubs, cubs which Richardson handled and used to gain notoriety.

Interview advertisement showcasing Richardson playing with lion cubs at Lion Park. Cubs which probably ended up sold to other breeding facilities or canned hunts, unless these two happen to be some of the select few Richardson took with him when he left.

Although he's known as the Lion Whisperer, Richardson has also readily handled other big cat cubs.

Yet Richardson has built his same career atop the idea that he doesn’t support cub petting. Meanwhile Richardson both overtly, and subversively states that such respected entities as Blood Lions (who do not condone any sort of hands-on interactions with captive big cats) do nothing to counter canned hunting, and have been entirely ineffectual in spreading any awareness and education about the issue. Publicly, in interviews, Richardson’s dismissal of Blood Lions and other groups is apparent in his repeated statements that his own activities, and ventures like Mia And The White Lion provide information to the public which otherwise would not be available or conveyed. According to Richardson, he and his actions and activities, are the only reason the public knows anything about canned hunting, cub petting, or the plight of lions.

In private, out of the public eye, and between individual members of conservation organizations, Richardson’s lack of respect for Blood Lions is more bluntly put, and widely known. In the circles of “shop talk” everyone knows that Richardson considers Blood Lions to be pointless, and not nearly as important as his own figure when it comes to lion conservation. He makes no attempt to hide such opinions because he knows that he will not be outed for stating them because, as mentioned, these organizations refuse to publicly criticize him and what he does, even when they acknowledge that he’s in the wrong.

For example, Richardson allows the propagation of claims that the children making Mia And The White Lion were never in danger from the lions they were working with. One article states “Wild cats only “tame” themselves after a long process of habituation, Richardson explained.” in reference to the logistics of making a movie where a real lion interacts with real children.

The problem is, captive wild animals are never tame. They are captive wild animals. The very definition of “tame” is domesticated. This is evidenced with exquisite savagery by the fact that while Richardson was coaching the child stars of Mia And The White Lion to work with “tamed” lions, one of his own “tamed” lions mauled a young woman to death right on his own sanctuary grounds.

The now deleted website which was flush with information about the film (then called Charlie The White Lion, and deleted after CWW began questioning the endeavor) contained a clear declaration that all filming would be stopped if Richardson sensed any danger at all for the children.

Disclaimer from the now deleted website regarding filming lions with children.

Yet our contacts in Africa confirmed that Daniah de Villiers was not only badly bitten by one of the lions used to make Mia And The White Lion, requiring hospitalization and numerous stitches, but that she was so afraid to work with the lions afterward that filming had to be paused. Not stopped, mind you, the show must go on, after all.

There is no truly safe way for children and lions to interact, despite all of Richardson’s claims of otherwise. Richardson himself has repeatedly over the years misjudged his own lions and been bitten and harmed by them. In most cases, those lions are not, conveniently, still in his care. Instead, he has “rescued” and kept only lions he could easily interact with.

Likewise, there is no truly ethical way to make a movie with live lions purchased from a lion farm. This fact is something Richardson has undoubtedly admitted to others in private, but one which he continues to deny in public, again and again claiming that making an “ethical” movie was the entire point.

One article quotes director de Maistre as saying “the whole principle was first to making an ethical shoot, we've got lions from hunting farms, lions have been respected as actors, they've never been trained, but tamed,”

Again, lions cannot be tamed, and if they behave the way you want them to through positive reinforcement, they have, in fact been trained. But those facts aside, here is yet another acknowledgment that the lions used to make this movie were purchased from Ukutula lion farm, which breeds lions exclusively to be used for cub petting, and lion walking, with older animals being sold, in all likelihood, to canned hunting. This is yet more evidence of Richardson’s derisive disrespect for Blood Lions–who bought canned hunting to the forefront of the world theatre while Richardson was busy buying lions from the farms they were exposing–since Blood Lions named Ukutula in their documentary, confirming it’s support of canned hunting.

And yet, Blood Lions maintains a silent front when it comes to Richardson’s actions in buying lions from one of the farms they actually outed as a participant in canned lion hunts. We cannot know why Blood Lions refuses to call Richardson out, but we do know that their lack of gumption in doing so has provided Richardson with a free rein to lie and misrepresent the truth to hundreds of thousands of fans, even more with the production of Mia And The White Lion.

But perhaps Blood Lions is simply afraid of Royalty. After all, His Serene Highness Albert II Sovereign Prince of Monaco himself actually bought the lions from Ukutula, and subsequently supported cub petting and canned lion hunting by doing so. According to this article, the entire production of Mia And The White Lion “benefitted from generous financial support of the Foundation Prince Albert II de Monaco and the Princely Government” And we know from statements made by the director Gilles de Maistre that the perpetual care of the lions had been set up by investors before the animals were even purchased. Investors who then facilitated in the purchase of the lion cubs from Ukutula. Considering the financial cost of purchasing white lions (worth far more to canned hunters than tawny lions) and then the cost of care for multiple lions for the duration of their lives, it seems likely that HSH Albert II of Monaco probably had a hand in providing the trust which obtained and will now provide support for those lions, support which will be carried out by Richardson’s own sanctuary.

Gobsmackingly, in this article by Reader’s Digest from July of 2018, Richardson presents himself as being steadfastly against taking any more lions into his care.

“The last thing he wants, however, is to end up with more lions in his sanctuary, a big reason his females are on contraception. His aim is for the captive population to plummet; he supports a nationwide moratorium on breeding.”

But by the time that article was published, Richardson had quietly already brought all the lions used in the making of Mia And The White Lion to his sanctuary. Lions which were bred in captivity, even though he also claimed in the recent article to support a nationwide moratorium on breeding.

Well, gosh darn, that’s convenient of him to support a ban on the captive breeding of lions, and to declare that he doesn’t want any more lions on his sanctuary after he’s already helped buy captive bred lions for his own use, and after he’s already brought those lions to live at his sanctuary.

It seems that for Kevin Richardson, the “truth” is an ephemeral thing, ever-changing to suit his own needs and purposes. Handling lions is acceptable if he says it is, supporting canned hunting by handing money over to it is acceptable if he deems it so, teaching children that captive lions can simply be set free in the wild is realistically possible if he says it is, and training lions for use in the film industry isn’t exploitation if he’s the one doing it.

Unfortunately, until truly ethical conservation groups and organizations like Blood Lions “grow a set” and publicly speak out to permanently, decisively emasculate and banish the lies and misnomers provided by Kevin Richardson and those like him, fairytales and falsehoods are going to continue to be spun for public consumption. With less than 48 hrs to go until Mia And The White Lion is released in France, all we can do is wait and see just how hungry the public is for utterly fake, romanticized stories about girls and their pet lions.

And then we’ll get to the business of publicly, pointedly, correcting the fake facts propagated by Richardson with his pet projects. Because what good is the gift of education, if you don’t have the courage to use it to protect the things you love?

*** While no established conservation group has spoken out against Kevin Richardson’s practices and projects like Mia And The White Lion, nor his claims of leading the charge in the anti-canned hunting and anti-cub petting movements, Blood Lions was specifically named in this article because we consider them to be the first and foremost authority in the matter of anti-canned lion hunting education. That said, LionAid, Panthera, nor any of the other well known lion conservation groups have publicly addressed Richardson’s actions. We invite any of these groups to contact us if they wish to make a statement on the matter.

Ukutula

Conning The Public With Conservation Claims

It was recently brought to the attention of CWW that Ukutula Conservation Center & Biobank (the fancy new face of Ukutula Game Reserve and Lodge) will be hosting a “One Day Professional Conference” on November 16th, 2018, and after some considerable research, we have questions. Very, serious questions. Namely questions about how multiple professionals (some of them with exquisite records) have been conned into speaking at a conference hosted by one of South Africa’s most notorious for-profit lion farms.

Some of the connections are obvious. For example, many of the guest speakers presenting at Ukutula’s “conference” are associated in some way to local universities, such as the University of Pretoria, North-West University, etc. Ukutula has carefully cultivated its connections with local universities as a way of attempting to validate itself. It’s not difficult to look at Professors or students committing research for their thesis papers or schoolwork, and understand why it would be advantageous to work with Ukutula in order to have access to the animals they want to study. In fact, one of the “Advisory Committee” members of UCC Dr. Imke Lüders has stated point blank that she utilized Ukutula for research trips on multiple occasions because the lions at Ukutula are habituated to humans, and used to being handled and therefore very easy to work with.

It’s reasonable then, to speculate that the majority of the academic “professionals” who engage with UCC do so out of convenience and self-interest. This statement is not made in judgement of those research professionals, so much in acknowledgment that very often in the name of science, sacrifices of ethics are made in order to obtain research and information.

The announcement of the live birth of the two AI cubs in early September, 2018 was made with great pride and fanfare, as those involved touted it as the potential baseline for the conservation of other endangered large wild felids. These claims, however, directly conflict with the statement of criticism levied against UCC and the University of Pretoria, by no small number of conservation experts.

According to these groups which all signed a letter of concern addressed to the University of Pretoria, the captive breeding of lions, whether assisted or not, does not contribute to biodiversity conservation or address the main threats to wild lion conservation. The group letter goes on to detail how the captive lion breeding industry in South Africa is associated with the exploitation of lions through interaction activities, canned hunting, and the lion bone trade.

Nonplussed by the letter, despite the considerable expertise of those who signed it, both UCC and UP have continued to tout their achievements as “world-firsts” and UCC continues to bill itself as a leader in lion conservation.

Ukutula Conservation Center’s website is full of eye-catching graphics, but one only needs to watch a few videos for the gaps in facts, and misinformation provided to be blatantly clear.

For example, this video, featuring Ukutula Lodge owner Willi Jacobs, opens with Jacobs declaring that “Ukutula Lodge and Ukutula Conservation Center both contribute very meaningfully to conservation. The Lodge,” Jacobs says, “Hosts “ecotourism” and the ecotourism pays for conservation that the Conservation Center and Biobank are involved in.”

What Jacobs does not specify is that this “ecotourism” as he spins it, is nothing more than cub-petting and lion-walking ventures which are perpetuated by the constant breeding of captive lions in order to produce cubs to be used first for cub-petting, and later for lion-walking.

Cubs are a constant presence at Ukutula.

As the cubs grow they become part of the lion-walking tours.

Once those cubs age out of lion-walking, it is not known where they go, but Ukutula has been linked to intermediaries who are known to buy and sell lions for and to canned hunting outfits. UCC claims to participate in two animal-tracing databases, but these databases are not accessible to the general public, and are simply a way for owners to track their own animals, so they offer no traceability the way UCC suggest they do.

In another video which focuses on the value of research at Ukutula Jacobs, again narrating, opens with declaration that with the recent success of research carried out by the Ukutula Conservation Center, and the University of Pretoria (regarding the AI cubs) there, “seems to be a misunderstanding” within the media and among certain individuals “with regard to the value of this research.” Jacobs goes on to claim that while lions have been used almost exclusively in the research at UCC, they are not actually the main focus of that research. Rather, according to Jacobs, all the research done on lions bred by Ukutula is simply to help other endangered large felids. Jacobs admits that lions have no real trouble breeding either in the wild, or in captivity, but reiterates that the study of lion reproductive physiology can be used to help other endangered species in the future. It should be noted, however, that more than one study carried out at Ukutula involved researching the gene responsible for white lions, so that the ongoing breeding of white lions could continue.

Jacobs lists the Black-footed cat, the Scottish wildcat and the Asiatic golden cat as examples, stating that “these techniques” (referencing the techniques supposedly pioneered at Ukutula) have already been applied with great success in the aforementioned felids. These assertions create a conundrum, however, when one considers the timelines of conservation efforts for these other cat species, which largely took place some years ago, which means that the research done at Ukutula in the last year, resulting in the successful AI breeding and birth just two months ago couldn’t have been used. Never mind that in the first part of his narration, Jacobs stated that the studies done at Ukutula would help save wild cats in the future, and then he immediately states that the studies already have, past tense, helped wild cats.

Jacobs then says that the success with AI really “marks a stepping stone towards meaningful conservation initiatives which can be applied to critically endangered cat species.” Which again contradicts the prior statement that the research has, past tense, helped.

Circling his narration back toward the criticism that UCC has received, Jacobs continues, “It is very clear that there is a wrong perception among the public and some media that Ukutula is a commercial breeding facility. We’d just like to categorically state that this is not the case. Ukutula does have a breeding program which is a controlled veterinary-supervised project so as to be able to host various research projects.”

Please take a moment to carefully consider exactly what Jacobs has stated about Ukutula Conservation Center. “Ukutula does have a breeding program which is a controlled veterinary-supervised project so as to be able to host various research projects.”

Lions at Ukutula are bred by veterinarians in order to fulfill the needs of research projects. Not for conservation. For research. Like rats, mice, rabbits and other laboratory research animals. The founder of UCC has stated point blank that Ukutula’s breeding program is designed to produce lions for use in scientific research.

Let that sink in.

Now, note as per their own website that Ukutula is registered as a:

Wildlife Breeding Facility

Wildlife Trading Facility

Animal Exhibition Facility

UCC is also listed as a rhino orphanage, and animal rescue center but we have been unable to find any references to rhinos, or animal rescue linked with Ukutula independent of Ukutula’s own claims on their website.

Back to this video, Jacobs moves on to defend UCC despite the fact that he just stated the facility breeds lions to be used for scientific research, “For years Ukutula has been criticized for the research done here and one wonders what the motives are of these critics that keep pointing a finger at Ukutula.” We have been unable to find any article that criticizes research done at Ukutula. Rather, they all criticize the lack of useful and meaningful research, along with criticizing the fact that Ukutula continually breeds lions and allows human and lion interactions.

Jacobs goes on to question the motives of Ukutula’s critics, suggesting that they are simply jealous because Ukutula has “taken the rug out from under” them by “proving that research is important and that they are now not able to use the emotion and sensation of the very important subject of conservation so that they can collect funds and receive donations from people who are ill-informed, or mis-informed by them.”

Thus is the gist of the videos available on the Ukutula Conservation Center website. Since the first two videos we checked out were clearly defensive responses to the deserved criticism and questions posed by those who do not support the continual captive breeding of lions, we tried a few more videos, to no avail.

Links to so-called research projects contain only more videos, filled with simplistic, and un-educational fluff such as images of an unconcious cheetah with the text “Sedating male cheetah” images of medical personal holding a thermometer in the cheetah’s rectum accompanied by the text “Wildlife veterinarian monitors temperature” the cheetah is then pictured on an exam table with the text “General health check by veterinarian” similar images appear with the text “Professional biodata recording”. The same video containing the above listed images also includes completely incorrect descriptions, such as showing the process of intubation for anesthesia but describing the scene as ”Examination of the mouth and throat” Placing an Intubation tube and securing the airway for anesthesia in a big cat for a surgical procedure, and carrying out an oral exam are two vastly difference procedures. To mistake one for the other is both laughable, and tragically revealing in regard to the ignorance involved.

If one can disregard the self-serving (and in the case of Jacob’s admittance that Ukutula breeds lions for use in scientific research like lab rats, horrific videos) we have to admit that UCC’s website is shiny, and attractive, if not terribly functional. Although it’s superficially stacked with interesting teases of supposed research projects, and successes, there are few links to any in-depth information. Instead, we’re left with only videos containing little information and flashy powerpoint diagrams which contain even less information of any value.

When one checks out the “experts” who comprise the UCC Wildlife Research & Conservation Education Advisory Committee, the ethical oversight of UCC goes right out the window. Ignoring the fact that Willi Jacobs, who founded UCC is a member of his own Advisory Committee, three of the other four committee members are either employed by the University of Pretoria, and/or graduated from UP. This includes Dr. MJ Grundlingh, who also happens to be the founder of the Wildlife Education Foundation. That last is important because UCC offers a myriad of “predator education courses” which upon completion offers the attendees “official WEF & ACC accredited certificates” to verify their level of education. Grundlingh’s books are also peddled on the Ukutula website under educational products.

In case you still don’t follow, UCC basically offers “educational courses” for “wildlife & conservation enthusiasts, educators & students, wildlife volunteers and nature enthusiasts” promising them a certificate of accreditation once they’ve completed the course. But in reality, there is no accreditation, nor is there any formal certificate to be gained. UCC runs the courses it offers, and then UCC hands over the certificates of accreditation, but UCC has no actual authority to issue any certificate of accreditation of education to a civilian. On top of that, the Wildlife Education Foundation which co-signs these “accreditation certificates” is owned and run by a member of UCC’s own Advisory Board.

And the conflict of interests doesn’t stop there. Another member of UCC’s Advisory Committee, Claudia Dinkelman, described as a “Qualified, award-winning Veterinary Technologist” who is a full time associate with the UCC & Biobank, is listed on Zoominfo (as of November 2, 2018) as also being currently employed by Deltamune Ltd.

Deltamune Ltd just happens to be “a world class South African-based biotechnology company, with a focus on veterinary and public health”, which strives to “be a vaccine partner who is committed to finding solutions to our African diseases and conditions” as well as offering a “comprehensive laboratory solution to the animal health and food industry in South Africa.”

So now we have Ukutula Conservation Center breeding lions for scientific research, with an Advisory Committee full of persons attached to the very Universities that use UCC for their staff and students in research, persons who are also possibly employed by a biotechnology company involved in researching and laboratory testing of vaccines and pharmaceuticals. A biotechnology company which also just happens to list North-West University as one of its associates, and surprise, North-West University also uses UCC for its scientific research projects. With literally every facet of Ukutula and all the “experts” and Universities both directly and indirectly attached to UCC and each other, it’s impossible to maintain an objective oversight of ethics and standards. Everyone has something to lose if anyone tries to blow the proverbial whistle over a problem, so no one is likely to say anything. The reputation of prestigious Universities have been inexorably bound to the reputation of UCC, as have the reputations of all the individuals who have carried out their own research at UCC. This conflict of interests even carries on into some of the guest presenters at UCC’s upcoming “professional conference”. Professor Ché Weldon is an Associate Professor with North-West University, which as just listed, both uses UCC for research, and is an associate to Deltamune Ltd.

With all of these grotesque facts laid out like wastrel possibilities abandoned in favor of easy and convenient research, it’s unconscionable to see figures like Dr. Johan Marais and Dr. Zoe Glyphis of Saving The Survivors sign on to present at UCC’s farcical “Wildlife Research & Its Contribution to Conservation” conference in November. Ukutula has struggled valiantly to sweep it’s dirty cub-petting and lion-walking business out of sight under the proverbial rug, replacing that reputation with the facade of a reputable center. By engaging with UCC, genuine conservationist only help blur the public’s understanding of the damage that groups like UCC cause.

UCC continues to pour money into sculpting a new image for itself, repeatedly posting on their pages that UCC supports “the IUCN’s one-plan-approach (OPA) to species conservation and animal breeding principles, where animal breeding is considered an important part of conservation management as stipulated in terms of the convention of biodiversity held in 1994.”

This disclaimer appears in multiple places throughout the UCC website.

But UCC is not actually a member of the IUCN, and while they claim to “support” the OPA their statement regarding it takes an immensely complex concept and narrows it down to one ideal–that captive breeding is an important part of conservation management–while ignoring the overreaching scopes of the OPA. And for good reason. If one actually takes the time to understand the OPA, they will find that UCC does not meet the requirements laid out by the IUCN, nor does the IUCN support captive breeding cavalierly the way UCC presents.

OPA was originally written as a failsafe in order to include even captive populations (ex situ) of animals within the scope of longterm planning for conservation. Because any captive population is ex situ, but only ex situ populations which meet strict specifications to qualify as part of OPA, the IUCN guidelines are specifically intended for situations in which individuals (or live bio- samples) of any species (or other taxonomic unit) are present ex situ for any period of time for a clearly defined conservation purpose.

The IUCN guidelines go one to clarify that:

Only ex situ populations with clearly defined conservation goals and objectives that contribute to the viability of the species as a component of its overall conservation strategy. While many different types of ex situ populations exist, with many different and sometimes overlapping roles and contexts, ex situ management for conservation only applies to those ex situ populations that have conservation as their primary aim. The ex situ activities must benefit a population, the species, or the ecosystem it occupies and the primary benefit should be at a higher level of organisation than the individual. The conservation goals and objectives can be diverse and may include not only providing individuals for reintroduction or other conservation translocations, for genetic rescue or as insurance against extinction, but also for allowing tailored conservation education, conservation research and training that targets the reduction of threats or the accruement of conservation benefits for the species.

Again, and again, the IUCN guidelines specify that any and all breeding or captive management of a particular species be maintained solely for the purpose of conservation, with any and all research focused solely on the conservation of the species in question. Meanwhile, Ukutula commercially breeds, sells, and trades, lions for scientific research purposes which–in Ukutula’s own words–are not designed to benefit lions at all.

UCC’s obsessively repeated claim that the IUCN considers captive breeding an important part of conservation management is simply one more intentional mistruth in their bid to con the public with their conservation claims. It’s just a new spin on an old lie, that lie being that the continued breeding of captive lions will somehow aid in the conservation of wild lions. And as long as scientists and universities are willing to turn a blind eye to the abuse of cub petting and lion walking in favor of getting in some research, Ukutula will continue putting new spins on its old lies. As long as genuine conservationists are willing to overlook the constant breeding, and missing older lions in favor of “not rocking the boat” Ukutula will continue to farm lions like potatoes in the field. And as long as idolized figures like Kevin Richardson are willing to buy into the scheme by purchasing farmed lions from Ukutula (as he did for his upcoming movie, Mia And The White Lion) there will always be an open market of people willing to buy farmed lions.

Guest at Ukutula participating in cub-petting with a white lion cub.

Scene from Mia And The White Lion featuring white lion cubs purchased from Ukutula, supposedly this represents conservation.

Another Ukutula guest participating in cub-petting with a white lion cub.

Another still from Mia And The White Lion using white lion cubs purchased from Ukutula, supposedly offering a message of conservation.

Every engagement professionals participate in with Ukutula–no matter the goal–supports the systemic breeding and abuse of captive lions and other animals for research and profit. And every time the conservation community allows such participation to slip aside without rebuke, we are endorsing that support of systemic breeding and abuse of captive lions and other animals for research and profit.

Don’t be conned by new spins on old lies. Don’t stand aside and allow lion farms like Ukutula to quietly redress their shabby exploitive realities with fancy conservation window dressings. Speak up, speak out. If we don’t do so today, our chance will be gone by tomorrow.

When You’re Too Popular To Give A Crap About Reality.

When You’re Too Popular To Give A Crap About Reality.

By all accounts, Shaquille O’Neal is a pretty likeable guy. He almost always has a smile on his face in media photos, he’s never been shy about using his position and wealth to help other humans. And on a professional level, he seems well liked by everyone, teammates, opponents, and others in the industry.

But there’s another side to the all-smiles-friendly-guy Shaquille O’Neal. Shaq owns several pet big cats, and regularly visits, and supports facilities which breed, inbreed, exploit, abuse, and sell for profit, big cats of various species and hybrids.

It’s important, before we go any farther, to understand that the majority of the public (literally, billions of people) either don’t care, or don’t understand, that what Shaquille, and other celebrities who engage in the exploitation of captive wild animals are doing, is exploitation of those animals. This is why it’s vital for those of us who do understand to raise awareness whenever possible. Only when the general public reacts in an adverse way, rather than in a supportive and praising manner, can we hope to cultivate within people like Shaq a new perception of their actions.

So back to the fact that Shaq owns big cats. By his own words, Shaq first got “involved” with big cats somewhere around 2005. It’s only been in the last 3-4 years that videos of him with the tigers have really hit social media, but according to this 2015 article, Shaq stated that he owned tigers, and had owned them at the time of the interview for some 10 years already. Of course, the two tigers he keeps as pets are billed as “rare white tigers”. “Rare” only in the purview of the often intentionally-ignorant public. Anyone who has engaged in Google could explain the fact that white tigers are neither “rare” nor “endangered” but are, rather, the product of repeated and intentional inbreeding to cultivate recessive genes. The creation of white tigers also creates immense by-products, those by-products being normal colored tigers, and deformed white cubs which must be euthanized. For each adorable, normal looking white tiger cub you see, there are usually multiple average colored tiger cubs, and deformed tiger cubs which were either sold as offal and/or pets, or euthanized due to their deformities lost in the background. Think of white tiger cubs as the milk in the dairy industry, and the normal colored tiger cubs as the calves. In order to get a white tiger cub, you must produce a large number of undesired cubs which are then simply disposed of as waste product, just as bull calves are disposed of in the dairy industry.

Example of the sort of genetic abnormalities not uncommon in the inbreeding of white tigers.

If the fact that Shaq owns two inbred tigers (and is extra proud of it) doesn’t repulse you, there’s also the fact that just recently Shaq presented his pet liger to fans on his Instagram account. That’s right, Shaq is now the happy owner of a genetically twisted inter-species crossbred (and in many cases also inbred) pet big cat. According to O’Neal only two people in the world own a liger, him, and the Prince of Dubai. We presume that Shaq means there are only two private owners of ligers in the world. Because thanks to folks like Doc Antle (to whom Shaq is also connected, but more on that later) ligers have become the “pretty much my favorite animal” of countless members of the public. Heck, Antle and several other exploiters, even posit that ligers could become their own species of big cat in the future, and with their breeding programs. Never mind that many ligers are sterile. Never mind that many ligers are born with either visible, or invisible deformities. Never mind that many ligers live shortened lives, wrought with medical complications.

Scientific facts don’t seem to matter when you’re Shaquille O’Neal, and you decide to buy yourself the must-have exotic pet of the moment!

Apparently moral and legal quandaries don’t matter for folks like Shaq, either. Most, if not all, of the big cat “experts” Shaquille pals around with have faced citations for abuse of the animals in their care, USDA failings, inappropriate husbandry and some have faced even more serious legal issues. Joe Exotic Maldonado Passage (he also goes by Joe Schreibvogel) was recently arrested on two counts of murder for hire.

Joe Exotic in times past.

Yet days after Exotic was arrested and indicted, Shaq spent the weekend visiting the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park, which was owned, at one point, by Exotic. After GWEAP was forced to shutdown after multiple allegations of animal cruelty, and abuse, it was purchased by Jeff Lowe, another well known abuser and exploiter who has also faced multiple accusations of animal abuse in various locations. On our prior posts regarding Joe Exotic and GWEAP, several people have commented insisting that Exotic is not, and never was, president of the park, nor has he ever held any similar position. We are still working to verify these claims. Many sources, however, including Wikipedia (we’re citing it simply because it’s one of the most referred to references sources on the internet) state that Joe Exotic is the president or CEO of GWEAP. Once we’re able to verify Exotic’s current relationship with GWEAP we will update you.

Regardless of Joe Exotic’s present connection to–or lack of connection to–GWEAP it is a verified fact that Shaquille has been friends with Exotic since before he managed to lose the original version of the park. There are multiple videos floating around which show Shaq visiting Exotic, and playing with big cats. And since Shaquille is still frequenting GWEAP and interacting with its big cats, he’s now associated with Jeff Lowe. Lowe, himself, fields charges of abuse regarding the animals in his care on a regular basis. Yes, he still holds a license to possess and exhibit exotic animals, but only in spite of the efforts of numerous captive wild animal advocates who have pled with the USDA to terminate Lowe’s license. Just this year, in May, PETA petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture to decline the renewal of Lowe’s license.

Lowe’s issues go back years, with a laundry list of citations including unfit and insecure enclosures, and leaving animals unsupervised in inappropriate conditions (in 2016 tiger cubs were found roaming in a house located on the GWEAP facility grounds) and in June of 2013 Lowe was investigated by the USDA for the deaths of 23 tiger cubs in the span of seven months. Nevertheless, that same USDA has yet to withdraw Lowe’s licenses. Then there’s the fact that back in 2013 there was a mirrored situation involving Low and Joe wherein Lowe (still operating a decrepit “zoo” in South Carolina) repeatedly claimed to be a partner in Exotic’s Wynnewood park, GWEAP, while Exotic admitted that Lowe had visited his park, he emphatically insisted that Lowe “has absolutely no ties to us.” Fast forward to 2018 and now Lowe–who bought GWEAP after it was shutdown and Joe Exotic lost it–is claiming the exact same thing about Joe, in spite of the fact that Exotic is referred to as being partnered with, or president of the park.

Jeff Lowe with one of his own inbred hybrids, which he calls a liliger.

Both Lowe and Joe Exotic and their considerable laundry lists of exploitation and abuse pale in comparison to Shaquille O’Neal’s association with Doc Antle, of T.I.G.E.R.S. With literally decades of abuse and exploitation behind him (spanning multiple states, no less) few men have been able to turn animal abuse into a commercial business the way Doc Antle has. But that’s not for lack of trying on Antle’s part. He’s all too happy to take on apprentices, teaching them the same bunk science, and behavior he’s based his own empire on.

It was one of these apprentices named Robert Johnson who provided the inbred white tiger to Shaq for this 34th Birthday party. You know, the one he dragged down a red carpet while dressed like a old school gangster.

Johnson has also provided captive wild animals for handling at events like Obama’s inauguration, movies, and live shows. That’s kind of what he does. Breed captive wild animals, and then use them to make money. This includes ligers. Ligers like the one Shaq presented to his fans recently. Just where Shaq purchased his liger remains a mystery. With Antle breeding them constantly, however, the inbred hybrids are no longer just the stuff of legend. They’re quickly becoming the new hotness. And with Shaq now advertising his personal liger like the newest model of must-have cuddliness, things are only going to get worse.

Robert Johnson

Johnson’s teacher, Doc Antle.

Likewise, with ignorant, but very popular morons like Shaquille O’Neal (who has been repeatedly, and consistently berated by former fans trying to make him understand how keeping tigers and ligers as pets is exploitive and wrong, to no avail) continue to associate with abusers like Antle, Johnson, Joe Exotic, and Jeff Lowe those abusers are only going to continue to grow their followings, and continue to abuse and exploit the captive wildlife who cannot escape them. Even know, an entire new generation of abusive exploiters like the infamous “Real Tarzann” are modeling themselves after the likes of Antle, and younger generations are all too happy to buy into the lies.

The "Real Tarzann" who just surpassed 3 million followers on Instagram, and who constantly tags Doc Antle, and promotes him.

Hard Choices, Which Only You Can Make

Hard Choices, Which Only You Can Make

Recently, there have been many questions raised by Captive Wildlife Watchdog about Kevin Richardson’s active, and continued, involvement with the purchase and use of captive bred lions in commercial productions like the upcoming movie Mia And The White Lion. In response, supporters of Richardson have cited the movie Born Free, along with Joy and George Adamson, alluding to the idea that Richardson’s activities are just as important to spreading awareness and aiding in lion conservation as the Adamsons and their lions were, and likening Richardson to the Adamsons.

Since the Adamsons have been brought up repeatedly, we felt it important to address the subject. The facts presented here have been objectively gathered from various sources. They will undoubtedly startle and upset some readers, but they are in no way intended as any sort of attack on the Adamsons. They are simply unbiased facts regarding the family and its actions.

While George Adamson attended boarding school in England, George and his brother Terence originally fantasized about becoming Big Game Hunters in Africa.

• At the age of 18, in 1924, George traveled to Kenya to work on his father’s sprawling coffee plantation.

• Disliking the work, George tried gold prospecting and several other odd jobs before signing on as a professional Safari Hunter.

• After several years of professionally killing trophy animals for Safari customers, George joined Kenya’s Game Department.

• In 1956 while tracking a “maneater” lion George Adamson shot and killed a lioness. There are two accounts of the killing. In one, George shot the lioness after mistaking her for the maneater he was hunting, and in another, Adamson shot the lioness when she charged him. Either way, Adamson shot and killed a lioness.

• Upon discovering that the lioness he had killed was the mother of three cubs, George took the cubs back home to his wife Joy.

• Two of the three cubs, being large and healthy, were promptly sold off to a Dutch zoo.

• Because the third cub was undersized and easily managed, Joy kept her as a pet, and named her Elsa.

• After living with Elsa as a pet for three full years, the Adamsons decided to “re-wild” the adult lioness and try to reintroduce her to a natural habitat.

• Despite this professed goal, the main “adventures” within the later published “Free” books (as Joy’s Elsa trilogy is often called) are the Adamson’s continual attempts to actually retrieve Elsa and her cubs after they’ve wandered off into the wild bush. In addition, even after Joy acknowledged that Elsa had proved her ability to fend for herself, the Adamsons continued to kill antelopes and provide them for the lions.

• The Adamson’s lions (being Elsa’s cubs, which though born wild were still considered pets by the Kenyan government because they were habituated to the presence of and interaction with the Adamsons) became such a nuisance, killing cattle, goats, and sheep which belonged to neighboring herdsmen, that Kenyan officials finally ordered the Adamsons to round them up and remove them.

• Officials in Tanzania agreed to allow the lions (Elsa had since died) to be released into the Serengeti National Park.

• The Adamsons, however, also moved into the park, and began making regular trips outside the boundary to shoot animals, and then bring them back to supplement the feeding of their “re-wilded” lions.

• Park officials were subsequently forced to formally forbid the Adamsons from feeding the lions, who without their “help” did, in fact, thrive in the wild, and subsequently left the area.

• The Adamsons then spent 19 months searching for, and trying to reengage with the now-living-wild lions–rather than allowing them to live free and without human interaction–before finally being forced to give up the effort.

• By this time, the book written by Joy which documented Elsa’s life as a pet, and then her release, as well as that of her cubs (though their release only happened after the Adamsons were banned from interfering with them) had become a best seller, and a movie adaptation of “Born Free” was in the works. *As a little known aside, George Adamson never received a penny of money from the “Free” books. All royalties went to Joy alone, and were subsequently used for various conservation projects (some of them her own) which she believed in supporting.

• The huge success of the books and movie, and the fame of the Adamsons allowed them to demand that local authorities exempt their own programs from game park regulations. Particularly because Joy’s worth as a benefactor (she had been wealthy even before her commercial success) outweighed her nuisance, the Adamsons and their projects were tolerated by the Kenyan government.

• George Adamson (now retired, and living near Meru National Park) helped obtain, and train, the 24 lions which were used to make the movie Born Free.

• George then took three of the lions used in the movie stating his desire to rehabilitate and release them, and returned to Meru (he wanted to take all the lions, but the Kenyan government considered his prior efforts to be less than successful, and had doubts, and only allowed George to take three animals)

• While working to “re-wild” the lions, George also took on the task of “re-wilding” a lion named Christian (who shot to internet fame in 2008 after footage of him hugging his former owners hit the airways) who had been purchased from Harrods of London, and then raised as a pet by his “rescuers”.

• One of Christian’s former owners, Ace Bourke, would later say (showing a deep understanding of the situation) that “One of the many lessons we learned from our experience with Christian was that while some see us as “saving” Christian – and we did have the best (if naive) intentions, we were unwittingly participating in and encouraging the trade in exotic animals.”

• Christian eventually succeeding in learning to live on his own in the wild, leaving the area with his new pride.

• One of George Adamson’s favorite lions, Boy, however, went on to maul and kill George’s assistant, a man named Stanley. According to several accounts, Boy then proceeded to drag the man’s corpse into camp and began eating it, at which point George shot and killed the lion.

• This occurred some five years after George originally took the lions (there were now seven lions in total, as George continued to add more without every releasing any, proving the government’s dubiousness to be wise) to be “re-wilded” and released.

• After the fatal mauling, George and his lions were permanently expelled from the reserve.

• By then, the only place the government would allow Adamson to once again set up his “rehabilitation” program was a place called Kora, which was considered a veritable “no-man’s land”. This exile would provide the final break between Joy and George who began living separately.

• Going her own way, Joy continued to breed, and work with cheetahs. Pippa the cheetah had four litters before her death, and Penny the leopard had two cubs. Joy wrote multiple books about the captive big cats and their offspring, though her continued intimate interactions with the cats after they “returned to the wild” begs the question of whether or not the cats were, in fact, ever successfully “released”. Joy Adamson was murdered in 1980.

• That same year, one of George’s lions badly mauled his brother, Terence, prompting the Kenyan government to shut down Adamson’s program once and for all.

• In 1981, George briefly attempted to start a leopard training program, but the effort quickly faltered.

• George Adamson was murdered in 1989 at his primitive camp in Kora, where he lived with some sixteen of his “re-wilded” lions, along with several servants.

• Guests at the camp recall how in the evening, George would “call” his lions with a megaphone and then exit the fenced camp in order to walk among them, feeding them hunks of camel meat, a mirror of the Adamson’s prior inability to refrain from forcefully interacting with their lions even once those lions have been “released” into the wild.

• At the time of his death, George was also in possession of three adolescent lion cubs, which he had obtained the year prior from an up-country ranch, something the Kenyan government had reluctantly allowed after having banned Adamson from obtaining new lions for almost a decade.

George Adamson’s programs and efforts were always controversial within Kenya. Even established contemporary conservationists at the time maintained that his projects were unimportant, dismissing him as a sentimental eccentric. Joy was viewed in similar fashion, as she very vocally attributed her bond with Elsa, and other animals, to the powers of telepathy, and insisted that they spoke to each other as two humans would, simply without words. This, along with her books, were viewed by the scientific and conservation community as anthropomorphizing and detrimental to the perception of wild animals by the general public.

George himself, had little interest in trying to document anything he did for science, declaring that he would not “reduce his lions to behavioral charts and graphs” so any functional knowledge that might have been gained through his efforts was lost within the biased, and personally-shaded entries of his private diary.

Articles eulogizing George at the time of his death in 1989 referenced the fact that a “romantic vision of Africa may have died with him.”

And that’s really what this is all about.

A romanticized ideal of humanity’s relationship with wild animals and captive wild animals versus the real version of it.

Captive Wildlife Watchdog is focused on the very real perils facing wildlife, and captive wildlife. One of those very real perils is the romanticization of wildlife itself.

The romantic ideal of Elsa and her offspring exists in the photos and videos of them playing with the Adamsons.

The reality of them exists in the maulings, fatalities, other injuries, and property damage caused by those same lions, as well as the subsequent death of the lions when they were killed by either locals, or in the case of Boy, George Adamson himself.

The romanticized ideal of Kevin Richardson exists in his own book, and the various movies, commercials, ad campaigns and photos which show him lounging and playing with his lions.

The reality of those captive lions exists in the fatal mauling of Megan van der Zwan by one of Richardson’s animals in February of this year.

Reality is something the Adamsons found out the hard way decades ago. Both George and Joy were injured multiple times by their own lions. Joy was later repeatedly injured by her leopard, Penny. George’s brother, Terence, was badly mauled by one of George’s lions. Stanley, George’s assistant was fatally mauled by one of George’s lions. Even a Japanese journalist was mauled–more than once–by a lion in George’s possession. It was the last two incidents which caused the government to permanently shut down George Adamson’s program, deeming it too risky because of the habituation of the lions to humans.

We know that big cats habituated to human interaction are much more likely to eventually injure, maul, or kill a human, at some point in their lives. And we know that once this happens, the habituated big cats who perpetrated the incident are, at worst, killed, and at best, forced to live under guard, and without the human interaction they were subjected to before the incident.

Why then do we repeatedly defend, and persist with embracing the forced habituation of captive big cats to humans?

Why do we romanticize these interactions, and idealize the bond created by forced habituation and conditioning?

Why do we continue to declare that the romanticizing and idealizing of captive wild animals is somehow beneficial to conservation simply because it captures the imagination of a public which doesn’t understand that it’s viewing a carefully constructed story rather than a forthright reality?

Yes, the Adamsons captured the worlds imagination. Yes, the Adamsons had “good intentions”. Yes, the Adamsons eventually managed to convey a handful of lions from captivity to a wild existence.

But one must also then say that:

Yes, the Adamsons created situations which resulted in the death of both humans and lions. Yes, the Adamsons “collected” lions, most of which were never successfully “re-wilded”. Yes, the Adamsons forced their lions to continue to interact with them by pursuing them in a wild setting them, feeding them in that wild setting, and then documenting for profit (in the case of Joy) those interactions.

The Adamsons were neither perfect, nor horrible. They had good intentions, but they made many mistakes. Their overall goal, despite their own struggles with “letting go” and their failings at large in the matter, was to return once-captive lions to the wild where they believed they belonged. They did not set out to exploit Elsa, even if they ended up willingly using many other lions in order to portray Elsa in a big screen movie. George, despite being considered by current generations to be a figurehead in lion conservation, resisted even properly documenting his own efforts, while Joy, pursued using captive big cats for profit in order to raise money to conserve wild versions of the same. The Adamsons represented both the most beautiful ideals of big cats, and the worst realities of them.

The questions Captive Wildlife Watchdog would pose to our readers, are:

Do you want to learn from the reality of the Adamsons, and evolve from them and what they did? Do you want to help create the understanding that in reality wild animals need to be wild, and do not need humans at all, but rather need to be allowed by humans to exist as they were intended to exist?

Or do you want to continue as the Adamsons did, repeating the same mistakes they made, creating the same result, that result being beautiful and romanticized stories involving captive big cats forced by circumstance to bond with humans while never living wild as they were meant to?

Are you willing to endorse the use of captive wild animals for commercial entertainment if that entertainment claims to contain a conservation message? Do you find the trade of a captive wild animal’s life in captivity in exchange for a beautiful story about how they should not be forced to live in captivity acceptable?

Or do you want to endorse the idea that wild animals which are forced into captivity through no fault of their own should be provided with as natural an existence as possible? Do you believe that humans have no right to impose their will upon that of an animal which cannot distance itself from them, and that we should, instead, remove our inappropriate influence from their sphere of existence whenever it’s possible to do so?

These are choices we cannot force on any of our readers. You must come to your own decisions. It is not wrong to admire the Adamsons and what they attempted to do, nor the beautiful, idealized, story they gave to the world. The members of CWW have all seen, Born Free, and read the books written by the Adamsons. We have all taken the impact and influence of those stories and shaped ourselves with them.

But we have also chosen to move on from them, to tackle the reality of the issues behind those beautiful, idealized stories. And in order to do that, we cannot, and will not, support the creation of more beautiful, idealized stories, which serve only to cover hard reality with a lovely, marketable, veneer of romanticism.

*****Addendum

Since posting this note, CWW was contacted by a follower, who forwarded a message to us, that they had received from someone else. We have verified that the author of the below statement did, in fact, personally know both Joy and George Adamson. He, himself, has decades of experience with wild, and captive wild animals. Because this was forwarded to us through a third party, we have left his name out, but again, we have verified that he knew the Adamsons personally, and greatly respected both of them. Please note the fact that this conservationists also personally knew the rancher involved, who was, himself, a conservationist.

“Having lived in the same Reserve in Kenya as Joy Adamson gave me some insight into this complex, intelligent and very tough old broad. Thus, while a very stern and callous individual in her dealings with other humans, she did also realize that she had quite a unique story on her hands and having the top publishers and editors in England as friends assured continuity in the warmth of the story throughout, even if it meant fudging a fact or two about Elsa's death.

The death of our beloved Elsa at the tender age of five was not "when she succumbed to Babesia felis, a form of babesiosis, a tick-borne blood disease similar to malaria" but instead directly related to the "local sentiment beginning to turn against Elsa and her cubs" as reported by Joy. If the story continued in this accurate telling, we would then have discovered that Elsa had begun hunting and killing the easiest non-human "game" - cattle on private ranches.

The Adamsons had little luck finding anywhere that would accept Elsa and her cubs with her growing reputation for killing livestock. This search dragged on so long as to see Elsa ramping up her attacks on the herds of cattle, so much so that it got to a point that the ranchers firmly believed that it was only a matter of time until she would turn her attentions to the only animal easier than cattle to kill, people.

Elsa was shot and killed by a ranch owner whose cattle were under increasing attacks from Elsa. They had gone as long as they felt they possibly could.

As things would play out, I would not only get to know and visit with Joy, but would coincidentally become quite close friends with the rancher in this tragic and fateful saga. A true conservationist, who I believe probably did try as long as possible to avoid this unfortunate and tragic ending.

FINAL NOTE
Most of my early work with captive wildlife was focused on big cats, having worked with as many as 60 free roaming lions and tigers at once. And, I also went on to successfully rehabilitate a zoo born baboon to a free living troop in the African bush. Yet, I always thought trying to rehabilitate a predatory animal that had already experienced a close loving relationship with humans was a recipe for tragedy. Joy came to believe this, though she was working with a very small leopard Penny, at the time of her death. George always remained steadfast, in his view any lion that he came across deserved a chance to be "Forever Free".”

When Conservation Is Just Another Way To Spell Exploitation

When Conservation Is Just Another Way To Spell Exploitation

Anyone involved with the conservation of lions in South Africa knows, and shudders, at the mention of Ukutula Lodge & Conservation Center (usually and more aptly referred as Ukutula Lion Farm) Anyone who is not deeply involved with lion conservation is still most likely familiar with Ukutula’s name, and not for any good reason.

One of the largest predator breeding facilities in South Africa, Ukutula’s name has become synonymous with the cub petting industry, as well as with the canned hunting industry. In recent years, Ukutula has begun insisting that it “tracks” all the lions it sells as offal from its massive cub petting farm “in order to assure that they aren’t used for canned hunting”. All of the information which supposedly proves that claim, however, is “confidential” which means that the public can only take the word of a company which breeds and exploits lions for profit, as proof that they don’t actually sell them for yet another tier of profit, to the canned hunting industry.

Daniah De Villiiers (Mia) with lion cub Charlie during the filming @copyright Coert WiechersGalatÇe Films-Outside Films

And frankly, even if Ukutula published the names of the buyers of their lions, it’s not difficult to legally avoid “selling to canned hunting facilities”. An entity like Ukutula can sell their lions to anyone who is “unassociated” with any canned hunting facility, and legally state that they “do not sell to canned hunting facilities” while the person they sold all their lions to, will then turn around and hold a dispersal sale, auctioning or selling all the lions to canned hunting farms. And it’s not illegal. Nor is it illegal, through the above described activity, for Ukutula to publicly claim that they don’t sell to the canned hunting industry.

But the fact would remain, in that scenario, that Ukutula’s lions did end up at canned hunting facilities. Just as the fact does remain, that publicly, it’s not known where all of Ukutula’s “aged-out” cubs go once they’re too mature for either cub-petting, or walking with tourists.

What is public knowledge, is the fact that Ukutula is responsible for the breeding and birth of hundreds of captive lions each year, and that subsequently each year hundreds of Ukutula’s “aged-out” sub-adult lions disappear from their park to parts unknown. That’s their business. It’s what they do. Even the creation of a “conservation center” in the hopes of legitimizing themselves as something other than a breeding and exploitation facility has done little to circumnavigate the simple fact that Ukutula exists solely to breed lions in captivity and then profit off of them in as many ways as possible, including selling them out of country to zoos.

Australia’s Billabong Zoo decided that it simply must have some inbred lion cubs from Ukutula. They eventually managed to import two–which despite being genetically inferior, were intended for use in breeding yet more captive lions–much to the dismay of conservation groups like For The Love Of Wildlife, who protested to the Australian government that captive breeding of lions within Australia offers no conservation value whatsoever. The pleas were to no avail, and Ukutula grew just a little more rich (and attempted to make themselves appear more legitimate) while Australia grew just a little more burdened by captive lions that don’t need to exist.

Blood Lions actually called Ukutula out in October of 2015, after the farm erroneously attempted to associate themselves with the well respected group (in yet another bid to appear more legitimate) In a Facebook post Blood Lions stated:

Blood Lions does NOT ENDORSE Ukutula Lodge and Lion Park.
The Blood Lions team and supporters condemn the attempt by Ukutula, a predator breeding and volunteer tourism operation, to link themselves with the film #BLOODLIONS.

We wish to make the following clear:
# The BLOOD LIONS team have had no contact whatsoever with anyone from Ukutula since the completion of the documentary and have certainly not given permission for them to 'screen' the film.
# The statement appearing on their various pages is completely misleading: the ‘screening’ they seem to be referring to is in fact a scheduled one with Discovery Channel for 11th October.
# The owners of Ukutula were given every opportunity by the makers of Blood Lions to go before the cameras - after various heated conversations with Ian Michler, they chose not to.
# Blood Lions does not in any way endorse Ukutula, its activities or any of its employees or owners. The full length version of Blood Lions exposes the Ukutula claims that they only breed for research purposes, despite it being obvious that they breed lions to sustain a lucrative volunteer tourism business.

As such, we challenge Ukutula to:
1). Explain why is it necessary to breed hundreds of lions that are not required by their “research partners”?
2). Explain why they remove cubs from their mothers at 3 – 10 days, when their mothers are perfectly able to raise them?
3) Prove that none of the lions that they have bred and sold, have been hunted or slaughtered for their bones?

No one ethical wants to be associated with Ukutula in the slightest way, even if there is no irrefutable evidence of their involvement in the canned hunting industry. Hard statistics for the cub petting, and to a lesser extent the canned hunting industry, remain elusive because the private nature of the industry means that either numbers aren’t required to be disclosed, or can easily be manipulated. However, it’s not difficult to get a general sense of numbers.

At the low end, 2,400-3,600 lions are bred in captivity each year in South Africa.

There are an estimated 8,000 lions in captivity at any given time in South Africa.

In 2015, the revenue for South African tourism (a large portion of which came from cub petting and lion walking endeavors) was R91.8 Billion (that’s just over 7 billion USD)

Despite articles like this one warning against cub-petting and walking with lions (and despite people like Kevin Richardson supposedly using their hands-on techniques to teach people not to get hands-on with big cats) the cub-petting industry in South Africa continues to flourish, as does the lion bone trade and trophy hunting largely via canned hunts.

In 2013 a documented 1,094 lion carcasses were exported specifically for trade in lion bones. This was up significantly from just 287 in 2010.

Between 2008 and 2015, the Department of Environmental Affairs issued permits for the export of 5,363+ lion carcasses, 98% of which went directly to known hubs of wildlife trafficking and lion bone trade. And that’s just what was legally documented.

It’s also just what’s been legally documented regarding lion skeletons and/or bones.

The United States alone imported 7,297 lion trophies between 2001 and 2016.

If you’re still not convinced of Ukutula’s sordid involvement with the captive breeding and exploitation of lions in South Africa, you can read more about them here, here, here, here, here, are you tired yet? And here.

Now that the fact that Ukutula is the manifestation of everything wrong with the captive lion trade in South Africa has been established, what would you think if we told you that famed Lion Whisperer, Kevin Richardson is involved with them? Are you shocked? Don’t be. After all, Richardson’s mythos is a business, and businesses work with whomever they have to in order to get paid. And right now someone who has been paying Richardson is one Gilles de Maistre.

Three years ago, Gilles de Maistre decided that what the world needed most in order to teach kids not to handle lions, was a movie that showcased a young girl handling a lion. Already a fan of Kevin Richardson’s de Maistre contacted him with the idea, and Richardson, of course, jumped right on board. But then, Richardson would, since he’s spent his entire career playing with his lions in order to teach people not to play with lions.

The entire premise of Mia And The White Lion (formally, Charlie The White Lion) is the bond of love and friendship between a young girl named Mia, and a white lion. De Maistre has stated that the movie is based on a short story written by his wife which was inspired by learning that the lions she and de Maistre had walked with in Africa were destined to be sold into canned hunting.

From Gilles' website.

From Gilles' website.

Unlike other, less authentic, (but very ethical) movies which use CGI for animal interaction, de Maistre was determined to use real lions interacting with real children. Enter Kevin Richardson, who agreed not only to be the primary wrangler of the lions, but to teach the children involved with the movie–over a three year period, no less–to work with and interact with the lions used in production. In essence, the movie will not be so much a “story” about the bond between a girl and a lion, as an actual documentary of their real bond.

Now, if you can set aside the sort of mind-numbing facts like 1) it’s not a unique bond if you can just take lions and children and train them 2) you’re literally doing the very thing your movie is supposed to teach kids they should NEVER do 3) you’re risking the lives of children and lions for three full years to make a commercial movie 4) you’re exploiting live lions for “authenticity” in making a movie about the exploitation lions, it’s also important to understand not just *any* lion would do for de Maistre.

No, for Mia And The White Lion, only *white* lions would do. Obviously. Which meant that several white lion cubs, the same age, color, and general appearance needed to be purchased at the same time so they could be trained together, and used interchangeably in the making of the movie. And what breeding facility happens to specialize in breeding white lions? Ukutula! Add to that, the fact that de Maistre has photos of his own walks with white lions at “a facility in South Africa” as well as himself playing with white lion cubs, and just do the math yourselves.

The precise source and number of the cubs de Maistre purchased (with the help of Richardson) for his movie has not been disclosed, but on a now (suspiciously) defunct website devoted solely to the movie, and containing in-depth information about its making, de Maistre stated that the cubs (but only white ones!) had been saved from an exploitive situation in the canned hunting industry. The website went on to say that after filming the lions would be cared for in a sanctuary for the rest of their lives by experts. *cough cough* We wonder whose sanctuary and what expert that might be? *cough Richardson cough*

But back to Ukutula, the most notorious lion farm and proud breeders of “rare” white lions in South Africa. According to de Maistre, evil lion farms like Ukutula are why he’s making Mia And The White Lion in the first place. To showcase the agonizing horror of lions bred in captivity, and exploited by humans, kind of like he’s doing with his own movie. According to de Maistre (very much on the now-removed movie website, but also on his personal website, here) his movie is supposed to combat cub-petting, lion farming, and canned hunting. According to de Maistre it’s this captive breeding industry in South Africa which is destroying lions, and harming conservation.

So why is Gilles de Maistre friends with Willi Jacobs, the owner–and therefore perpetrator of lion abuse and exploitation–of Ukutula Lion Farm?

You’d think that someone who’s making an entire movie to combat heinous activities like lion farming, cub-petting and canned hunting would have some brusque, if not outright derogatory, words for the owner of South Africa’s most notorious lion farm and cub-petting empire. Not so, in the case of de Maistre. Instead, director de Maistre actually invited Jacobs to visit the set of his anti-cub-petting, anti-lion farming, anti-canned hunting movie–a movie being filmed at least in part, according to the now-defunct website, on the sanctuary property of famed Lion Whisperer, Kevin Richardson. And it wasn’t just a formal, for-show, invitation to visit the set.

De Maistre said Jacobs was “welcome to come on the set when do you want” and then went on to say that “we” will come to visit Ukutula inDecember after filming.

And that’s all in response to Jacobs asking de Maistre “When are we going to see you at Ukutula again?” Clearly indicating that not only has de Maistre visited Ukutula, but that he and Jacobs know each other personally. After all, hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Ukutula annually, one rather doubts that Jacobs, the owner, interacts directly with all of them.

Friendly and familiar interaction between de Maistre and Willi Jacobs, owner of the infamous Ukutula Lion Farm on de Maistre's Instagram.

This interaction took place on de Maistre’s Instagram in November of last year, and while he’s posted numerous photos of his child actress and the lions since, nothing confirms whether or not Jacobs indeed visited the movie set, nor whether or not de Maistre visited Ukutula, as he said he would. But then, it wouldn’t be great for publicity if the two were seen publicly hanging out.

And with the fatal mauling that took place on Richardson’s reserve in February of 2018, (and several articles by us mentioning the upcoming movie by name) de Maistre has apparently already been on damage control for his precious movie. Having tweeted excitedly about how much money was being thrown at him by companies just the day before a young woman was torn apart by a lion owned by Richardson–who’s now spent three years training another young woman to interact with lions like he does–de Maistre went silent for a time regarding the movie. The title has changed from Charlie And The White Lion, to Mia And The White Lion, and the website for the former–which was flush with information about it–has been shut down. If one googles the former title, they find nothing of any importance. Googling the new title provides nothing but a IMDB profile, along with basic profiles on other movie sites–no information on the making of–and a few articles about how it’s been fought over in a purchase war in Europe.

And that’s really what matters, isn’t it?

Profit.

Profit is why Ukutula breeds lions in the first place.

Profit is why de Maistre purchased lions to make a commercial movie about them.

Profit is why Richardson signed on get paid to teach children to do what he does–something he adamantly states that no one else should ever do.

And Profit is why movie distributers have been fighting over distribution rights.

Not because any of them are hoping to save lions, but because they can see the dollar signs dangling off the timeless allure of a beautiful young girl walking alongside the king of beasts.

Its one of the oldest, and most profitable tropes in the civilized world.

And it’s going to keep making money for everyone involved, while continuing to commodify both the lions exploited in its making and captive lions in South Africa.

Lions and profit are the unbreakable bonds tying Ukutula, Gilles de Maistre, Kevin Richardson together.

No amount of marketing is going to change that, or make it acceptable. Not if conservationists, and the public decide that it’s not.

It all comes down to ethics. Either you stand by them, even if it means calling out big names like Kevin Richardson and Gille de Maistre, or you’re willing to toss them in the trash whenever you feel like it’s convenient and profitable to do so.

Which will you choose?

Justice For Captive Wildlife Worldwide

Justice For Captive Wildlife Worldwide

Over the last week there has been an influx of articles regarding the problems associated with captive wild animals being used for entertainment and profit. This rush of attention was preceded by the fatal mauling at the Marakele Predator Centre in South Africa. Not fatal for the human involved, but fatal for the male lion, Shamba, who carried out the attack. Part of the attention garnered by the incident can be attributed to the fact that it was captured on video by a tourist. After dragging the park’s owner, Michael Hodge, into the brush, Shama was shot and killed by other workers after he refused to leave Hodge’s side.

With a salacious video that includes the screams of horrified women, and a live action mauling that meets the public expectation of what The Ghost And The Darkness would be like in real life, the story was bound to go viral. Which, considering the state of lion conservation is not entirely a bad thing. However, the disproportionate level of definitive criticism offered toward Hodges and his Marakele Predator Center, when laid out beside the comparatively ambivalent reactions to the human-fatal mauling that took place at Kevin Richardson’s sanctuary just a few months ago, is brow-raising at the very least.

Despite having been critically injured, and ending up in the hospital, Hodges and his wife have suffered death threats so serious in nature that the Marakele Predator Center has now been closed, their website and social media pages deactivated. In sharp contrast, after the fatal mauling of Megan Van der Zwan at the sanctuary of famed Lion Whisperer, Kevin Richardson, thousands of fans lavished support on Richardson, even offering to start fundraisers for him, and the lion responsible for the fatality.

While the comment section of Richardson’s Facebook post about the mauling at his sanctuary was jammed with assertions that it was the fault of the dead young woman, not Richardson, that his lion killed someone–even though Richardson had removed the lion from its enclosure knowing that two young women were present at one of the bush camps at his facility–the public reaction has been much, much different toward Hodges.

The below quotes are from Richardson’s Facebook post regarding the fatal mauling that occurred at his facility:

“I cannot help but feel anger at the arrogance and stupidity of any human that would think it’s ok to get out of your protective vehicle”

“I don’t feel you could have done anything different to avoid this.”

“she died because of her own transgression”

“Please folks, instead of adding insult and accusation, try giving Kevin some much needed support and kind words to help keep his spirits up. Let him know that we continue to support him and his efforts.”

And here are some of the reactions toward Hodges:

"Know your place, we are not the Kings of any jungles.”

"You murdered an innocent being, due to human ego and error.”

"He was bred, caged and exploited for profit from birth by a greed-driven individual with a god-complex who thought that 'his' lion wouldn't attack him."

The lay members of the public aren’t the only ones to offer a lopsided response to the not-so-different mauling incidents.

While exceedingly few experts within the field of conservation gave any formal opinion to news outlets regarding the death of the young woman at Kevin Richardson’s facility (and if they said anything, they carefully avoided naming Richardson) there’s been no shortage of judgement passed on the incident which took place at Hodge’s Marakele Predator Center. This article put out by News24 contained sharp disapproval dispensed by recognized experts.

"Whether they have been bottle fed from birth or not, lions are wild animals and deserve to be treated with respect, with no human interaction,” – Blood Lions campaign.

"Furthermore, we strongly discourage wildlife interactions as this could result in the same display of behaviour, putting the public at risk as well as compromising the animal's well-being and possibly resulting in their unnecessary death”. – Martie Rossouw, manager of the NSPCA Wildlife Protection Unit.

"The lion's behaviour shows why habituated lions such as this one, apparently bottle fed since birth, can never be released back into the wild. They have lost their 'wildness' and the boundary between prey and playmate is blurred,” – Audrey Delsink of the Humane Society International.

Delsink goes on to state that experiences involving captive born and raised lions offer no conservation value and were not supported by the predator conservation or scientific community.

If these are the genuine positions of experts within the conservation community, then why the gross disparity between reactions to the two incidents?

• Both Richardson’s and Hodges’ lions were hand-raised by them from cub to adult.

• Both Hodges and Richardson worked with the lions on a daily basis.

• Both Richardson and Hodges are attributed with having a “special bond” with their lions.

• Both Hodges and Richardson utilized their lions in order to “raise awareness” about lion conservation.

• Both Richardson’s and Hodges’ facilities allowed guests to stay overnight, and both offer “up close” experiences.

Hodges’ lion, Shamba, was renown for leaping onto the bonnet of the caged truck containing guests offering photo opportunities for guests.

Richardson’s lions were memorably photographed sitting on the bonnet of a Mercedes Benz G Class vehicle for a car ad.

While Marakele breeds lions and predominantly functions off the revenue provided by guests, Richardson’s facility charges thousands of dollars to people who wish to “volunteer” there, as well as hosting guests in its bush camps. Unlike Hodges, however, Richardson also hires his lions out to make movies, and commercial advertisements. While Hodges breed his lions and Richardson does not, Richardson did orchestrate the procurement of several lion cubs specifically for the purpose of then teaching children to interact with the cubs as they grew to adulthood in the process of making the movie Charlie The White lion.

Photo credit Andrew Van Ginkel

Taken from the Instagram of the director of the upcoming Charlie The White Lion. The ultimate irony, is that this photo showing children who have been trained to interact with lions by Kevin Richardson was posted almost exactly one month after one of Richardson's lions fatally mauled a young woman not unlike Daniah, pictured here.

And yet, for some intangible reason Richardson–who actually spent an entire decade being paid to raise lions for canned hunting organizations before he began making movies of himself playing with his own lions, which had been purchased from the lion farm where he worked–is seen as an important figure in conservation, while Hodges is seen as a blight on it. The truth is that Richardson is merely the reverse face of the same coin in captive wildlife exploitation. The only real difference between the two is in how they present themselves.

Hodges peddles his lions with all the flare of P.T. Barnum, embracing the exploitation he engages in with cavalier hat-tipping confidence. Everyone knows that the majority of what they get from Barnum is fake but they enjoy the show anyhow, as long as it goes according to expectation.

Richardson, meanwhile, keeps his exploitation subverted by the mystique of his contrived persona, hiding it in plane sight like David Copperfield making airplanes and train cars disappear right before the eyes of enraptured onlookers. Viewers often start out dubious, but end up captivated, and subsequently convinced that he’s the “real deal” even though he bills himself as a magician.

At their core, the two are both nothing but illusionists with differing performances. One show might be better than the other but that doesn’t mean they aren’t both shows. It’s high time that the conservation community removes its rose colored glasses and addresses the exploitation of captive wildlife worldwide for what it is.

Exploitation.

Her Name Was Megan

Her Name Was Megan

Some twelve days ago, a 22 year-old-woman was mauled to death by a hand-raised lion belonging to the famed “Lion Whisperer” Kevin Richardson.

Her name was Megan. Megan van der Zwan.

That matters.

It matters more than the fact that the “Lion Whisperer’s reputation is now in question.

It matters more than the fact that the “Lion Whisperer’s” TAG Heuer ad campaign got cancelled.

It matters more than the fact that the “Lion Whisperer’s sanctuary is now involved in an investigation.

Her name was Megan, and she’s dead.

Her family is still struggling to come to terms with losing her, not that the media cares very much. In the days since Megan’s untimely and savage death, there was an immediate rush of interest, primarily in the fact that the famed “Lion Whisperer” had failed to control one of his lions, followed by days of radio silence. Then, just before and right after Megan’s funeral on Friday, two articles appeared, short, and devoid of any functional conversation about what actually happened.

One of the articles contained misinformation (that “Kevin” said the women were outside the camp, he has not ever said that) while the other was more interested in how Megan’s family was “dealing with” her death, the answer which of course, is that they aren’t dealing well at all. Their child is dead. That speaks for itself.

What’s not being spoken of is how all of this happened. How did a lion wind up in the direct proximity of two innocent young women in a location which is supposedly secure enough to house guests that pay to stay there? How was that lion comfortable enough with humans and human structures to approach the area without hesitation?

The answer is Kevin Richardson, himself. The conservation community just doesn’t have the fortitude to own up to that fact, and to discuss it in depth. In fact, proponents of Richardson within the conservation community are actually counseling that the community avoid discussing the fact that Richardson’s choice to create the mythos of the “Lion Whisperer” and promote his handling of his lions directly led to the death of Megan van der Zwan, because, as they put it “emotions are too high”.

Emotions are too high?

There was just another school shooting in America, and do you know who’s refusing to discuss gun control because emotions are too high? Pro-gun factions. It’s a classic stalling tactic.

Right now, even the most devoted “Lion Whisperer” fans are having a hard time coming up with valid arguments as to why it’s perfectly acceptable for Richardson to handle his lions after such handling resulted in Megan’s death. Therefore, they’re taking a subject that’s been discreetly brushed aside and intentionally avoided for years, and setting it aside yet again with the excuse that “emotions are too high” to discuss it. Strange, since before a young woman was mauled to death, attempts at discussing why it’s a bad idea for anyone to promote the handling of captive wild animals, no matter who they are, were brushed off as the attempt of a few “jealous” groups or individuals who “didn’t understand” how Richardson, and those like him, “operate”.

So it’s up to CWW, and anyone else willing to have the discussion about hands-on conservation versus hands-off conservation to pursue the issue. Especially since Richardson himself is refusing to talk about any of it. While one of the most recent two articles cites a statement from Richardson’s Facebook page, they aren’t actually quoting Richardson, but rather, the lay-person who runs his social media accounts. The only direct public statement Richardson has made about Megan’s death didn’t have to do with her, so much as himself.

“Myself and an experienced colleague took three lions walking in the Reserve, as we do on a weekly basis, as part of their exercise and stimulation regiment. We assessed the landscape for other big 5 animals and as per procedure sent out a notification that we were walking in the reserve. One of the lionesses charged off after an Impala and must have run 2,0 to 2,5km where she encountered the 22-year-old outside the car”

“I am devastated and my heart goes out to this young woman’s family.”

This is, as of the time of the drafting of this article, the only public statement Kevin Richardson has made about Megan’s death, or the mauling. It was only issued after some 24hrs of careful consideration to wording and presentation.

I took my lions out as I always do. I made sure there were no wild animals in the area, and I told my employees that I was taking my lions out. I’m devastated, and I feel badly for the other people dealing with this mess.

A simple rewording brings the actual content of Richardson’s statement forward to showcase just how self-serving and self-centered the statement is. And the most prominent thing missing from Richardson’s so carefully worded statement?

An apology.

You see, you can’t apologize for something without admitting guilt for it in at least some capacity. And Richardson can’t afford to publicly admit guilt without opening himself up for legal repercussions, both civil, and possibly criminal. Watchdog maintains the stipulation that Richardson did not want Megan to be injured or killed, just as we stipulate that Richardson feels terrible that she’s dead. However, the fact that Richardson recognized the tenuousness of his situation so profoundly as to wait 24hrs before issuing a public statement, and then wording that statement so cautiously as to avoid even apologizing to Megan’s family in order to also avoid anything that could be construed as an admittance of guilt that might be used against him later tells you where Richardson’s concern lay. And it wasn’t with the family of the dead young woman, or with the surviving young woman who is now dealing with the repercussions of having watched as her friend was killed.

Take a moment and let that sink in. Even less considered in this mess than Megan, who was killed by Richardson’s lioness, is her as-of-yet-unnamed friend. This second young woman was laughing and talking with Megan one moment, and then in the next moment found herself watching as Megan was torn apart alive by a lion. Graphic, we know. That’s precisely why we’re offering readers this gentle reminder of just how devastating this event was for the victims.

Watchdog has been accused of “exploiting” this situation for our own purposes. Our focus, however, is on the young women who suffered in this attack. One of them is dead, and the other irrevocably traumatized by witnessing the fatal mauling of her friend.

These women are the victims of a broken conservation system.

A broken system that Watchdog was founded to rail against. And we will continue to do so. Megan and her surviving friend will not have suffered in vain. They will not be forgotten, we will make sure of it.

The Tragedy Of Reality

The Tragedy Of Reality

Yesterday morning, Watchdog made a post about the tragic fatal mauling of a young woman which took place at the sanctuary of the famed “Lion Whisperer” Kevin Richardson. Our post was based both on firsthand, confidential information we were given by persons present in the immediate area of Kevin’s sanctuary, as well as statements made by officials of the Dinokeng Game Reserve. Despite these firsthand facts, our post was met with disbelief and anger. Some people chose to unfollow our page, while others defended Richardson, insisting that it must have been a wild lion who carried out the attack. Throughout the day Kevin Richardson fans continued to present outrage that we would dare attack the sovereignty of the “Lion Whisperer”.

Today, those fans, and conservationists awoke to a changed world, as far as dreamy, idealistic “becoming one of the pride” illusions are concerned.

Kevin Richardson himself has now made a public statement admitting that one of his hand-raised lions–one of the lions who “accepted” him as “one of the pride” in his own words–left Richardson while he was “walking” her on the Dinokeng Game Reserve. That lioness returned to Richardson’s sanctuary alone where she fatally mauled a young woman. The deceased young woman was accompanying a friend who was interviewing the manager of Richardson’s posh “bush camp”.

Richardson’s distress at this young woman’s death is doubtlessly earnest. However, it’s clear by his very careful public statement that Richardson and his team are already working toward damage control. Richardson’s brief statement gently supplants the understanding that he “sent out a notice” that he’d be walking lions, alluding to the fact that somehow two young women visiting Welgedacht for only a few hours should have known to expect that a lion habituated to human contact might ambush them if they got out of a vehicle to take photos.

Let’s begin by listing some verified facts, many of which the public might not be aware of.

1. When the “Lion Whisperer” produces those dramatic videos of himself walking his lions he’s not actually at his sanctuary, or on Welgedacht where his sanctuary is located. Not most of the time. Although there is a large “central enclosure” on Welgedacht where the cats are rotated on a weekly basis, Richardson also takes lions from that location, and out onto the expanse of the Dinokeng Game Reserve (DGR) where they can run and “be lions” for a while.

2. These “lion walks” have caused problems with the wild lions on DGR more than once. Watchdog’s contacts, who live adjacent to DGR, have told us that the wild lions have been pushed aside by the encroachment of Richardson’s captive lions.

3. Behavioral changes have been noted in the wild lions of DGR, in response to the presence of Richardson’s lions, and the scent marks and spore they leave behind on their “enrichment walks”. It’s also known that the wild lions can approach, and have approached the captive lions on Richardson’s sanctuary, which only provokes more troubling behavior on the part of the wild lions. Richardson has never made a public statement on how he would react should any of these wild lions confront his own lions while walking on DGR.

4. Multiple complaints about the impact that Richardson’s lions have on the existing pride of wild lions have been swept under the rug so far. Our contacts believe this is due to Richardson’s prominence, but they remained justifiably outraged by his continued pressure on the wild lions. Remember, Richardson claims to be handling his lions in order to protect wild lions, but by taking his own lions into the territory of a wild pride, he’s repeatedly creating stress on that wild population.

5. Despite the widespread belief that “no one but Kevin interacts with his lions or other animals” this simply IS NOT TRUE. One only needs to research Richardson’s “volunteer” program to discover a vastly different reality. “Volunteer” is a misnomer, as the “volunteers” pay thousands of dollars for the right to “volunteer” at Richardson’s reserve. And the #1 draw? The chance to “walk with Kevin and his lions when they go for enrichment”. Review after review lists the highlight of the “volunteer’s” trip to be “getting to walk with Kevin and his lions”. * Because there has been some confusion as to whether or not volunteers literally walk on the ground with Richardson, we are adding this clarification. “Walking with Kevin” refers to volunteers riding in an open-topped vehicle alongside Richardson and his lions. This offers them little to no protection, should the lions choose to attack, but it does keep volunteers off the ground. However, volunteers who “walk” with Richardson are allowed to feed the lions they “walk” with by hand. This constitutes direct interaction, and also habituates the lions to associate vehicles and the people in them with food rewards.

6. The “bush camp” where the young woman was killed is on Welgedacht, though it’s not been made clear which bush camp it was. Richardson recently opened a second “bush camp”. According to Constable Connie Moganedi, the victim had accompanied a friend who was working on a school project and “When they were about to leave, the lioness attacked the young lady.” Moganedi stated that the pair were walking to their car when a lioness attacked from behind. *We originally reported her that the young women had gotten out of their car to take photos. We have updated our article to reflect the latest information as it is released.

Remember, these women were only visiting Richardson’s sanctuary briefly, and weren’t privy to any of his “notices” about the fact that he was walking lions.

As we said in our post yesterday, Watchdog was founded to expose the exploitation of Black Jaguar White Tiger, but we have never shied away from publicly criticizing Kevin Richardson for his continued role in exploiting his own animals, and for influencing people like Serio to follow in his footsteps. Fans of Richardson often become irate when we make comparisons between the “Lion Whisperer” and Serio, yet the facts speak for themselves. Even details like the arrangement of Richardson’s sanctuary, with cats living in smaller enclosures, with a central enrichment area where they’re rotated on a weekly basis is mimicked by Serio in his own setup. Groups like I.C.A.R.U.S. Inc. have also written about this, and I.C.A.R.U.S. Inc. member Artemis Grey continues to be outspoken against Richardson and his behavior.

Richardson out "walking" his captive lions.

These truths are hard pills for diehard Richardson fans to swallow, but that doesn’t make them untrue. Even now, Richardson’s Facebook page is being swamped with comments supporting Richardson, and condemning the innocent dead woman, blaming her entirely for causing the incident. Richardson himself set up this reaction by stating that he’d “given notice” that he was taking out some of his lions. Well, to quote someone defending Richardson on a post yesterday, let’s tuck in to some “reality sandwiches”.

Reality Sandwich: Wild lions have been recorded traveling as far as 31 miles a day. The entirety of the Welgedacht is about 3,000 acres, or about 4.5 miles, and Richardson’s lions do not have the run of all of that land.

Reality Sandwich: A “classic” wild lion pride consists of 2-12 female lions and their cubs, and 1-6 adult male lions. Despite that Richardson repeatedly states he’s “Been accepted into the pride.” his own lions don’t actually live or function as a pride. They live in separate enclosures, and are walked only in small sets of two or three not as a real pride.

Reality Sandwich: The only consistent threat to a pride of wild lions (aside from humans) is other lions. The invasion of other prides, or prideless lions is an extreme stress factor for wild lions. It’s been regularly documented that dominant males will become so short-tempered as to lash out at their own females and cubs when also dealing with threats from outside lions. Richardson imposes foreign lions on the existing wild lions of Dinokeng every single time he chooses to “walk” his lions inside the established territory of the Dinokeng’s wild lions.

Reality Sandwich: It’s a long-accepted scientific fact that wild animals which have been habituated to humans and human contact are at a hugely increased risk for conflict, both fatal and nonfatal, with humans. Richardson’s lions have been hand-raised, and are completely habituated to human presence, yet Richardson intentionally takes them into a wild setting where they are completely uncontrolled, and unconfined. As Dinokeng is open to the public, Richardson’s lions could potentially run afoul other human visitors anywhere in the reserve.

Reality Sandwich: A lion is an ambush predator, which generally stalks prey to within 30 meters or less, or about 98 feet. The average success rate of a lion ambush is only around 30%, and lions simply do not possess the stamina to chase prey for more than 200 meters or about 650 feet at the most. Richardson’s public announcement states that the lioness responsible for yesterday’s fatal attack “charged off after an Impala and must have run 2,0 to 2,5km where she encountered the 22-year-old outside the car.” So, Richardson, whom is touted as a leading expert in lions, is claiming that one of his lionesses chased prospective prey for 1.5 miles–that’s some 2,400 meters, and ended up near a young woman, who she then attacked. We only have Richardson’s account of the incident, but that’s some amazing stamina.

Reality Sandwich: Hundreds of humans are injured by, and dozens of humans are killed by, captive wild animals every year, world wide. Interaction between captive wild animals and humans is dangerous, and usually results in bad outcome. Richardson’s lions, hyenas, and other animals are captive wild animals, and for all his mythic reputation, Richardson is fundamentally no different from anyone else who owns captive wild animals.

Reality Sandwich: When it comes down to it, the key words are “captive” and “wild”, a paradoxical description of animals which can never be truly wild, but will also never be completely tame. Outside of containment, Richardson has no more control over his lions than he would have over an actual wild lion. Had he been standing directly beside this young woman when the lioness chose to attack her, he could not have stopped the attack from taking place.

Biggest, Rankest Reality Sandwich: Kevin Richardson is not a lion. He’s just another human making a living off the animals in his care, and just like any other human exploiting captive wild animals, eventually something was going to go wrong.

No one is happy this happened. We at Watchdog, as well as Artemis Grey, whom we’ve spoken to about this incident, would have been perfectly happy to go our entire lives disapproving of Kevin Richardson and his behavior, without ever having our disproval validated. But it has been validated. All of our concerns about Kevin’s revered “bond” and his use of that mythos have come to fruition. The manifestation of that fruition is the tragic, needless death of a young woman. A young woman who, we might add, was tagging along with a friend specifically so she could experience the wonders of the “Lion Whisperer” she obviously admired.

So, what’s next? What will we learn from this tragedy? From this irrefutable proof that the “Lion Whisperer” possess no more influence over the lions in his care than that which can be affected through conditioning and control? For those of us who always expected (but hoped against) an outcome like this, nothing will change. We will continue to speak out against the exploitation of captive wild animals. We will continue to patiently explain to the public that you can’t teach someone not to do something by doing it yourself.

For the famed “Lion Whisperer” the future is less certain. Famous now for something very different than “being one of the pride” Richardson is facing an investigation not only from local authorities, but also undoubtedly from the authorities who control the Dinokeng Game Reserve. If the DGR chooses to rescind permission for Richardson to walk his lions openly on DGR land, where will he make his adored videos, commercial, fashion shoots, and other media?

Photo taken from the ad campaign Richardson participated in for Dutch menswear label Van Gils

Then there’s Richardson’s upcoming movie “Charlie the White Lion” to consider. Set for release in the next year or so, the movie, directed by Gilles de Maistre, has been creating a huge stir within distribution companies, all eager to capitalize on the profit to be had by pairing lions and children. De Maistre tweeted links just a day before this fatal mauling which showcased bidding wars and excitement over the film.

Screenshot taken from the Instagram account of Gilles de Maistre

A primary factor in the desirableness of the movie? The fact that it contains no CGI, and that real lions, and real children really interacted together in the production.

Lions which Richardson personally helped procure specifically for the purpose of making a movie with children that’s supposed to teach people not to interact with lions. Children which Richardson personally selected to make a movie with lions that’s supposed to teach people not to interact with lions.

Lions and children which Richardson personally taught to directly interact with each other in order to make a movie that’s supposed to teach people not to interact with lions.

One can only wonder if those who choose to screen the movie will grasp that it was made possible by a man who valued his own persona more than he valued the lives of the public who upheld him as the mythical “Lion Whisperer” and the lives of the lions forced to perform for his profit?

Idealistic Communes

Why Idealistic Communes Are Both Legendary, And Almost Non-Existent

There is a distinctive mythos attached to the idea of communal living. From the reverently famous Peaceable Kingdom series by Edward Hicks, (and the underlying theology of the “peaceable kingdom” on earth) to nefariously infamous communes like Jonestown and Charles Manson’s Manson Family, the iconic idealism of living together in harmony has been around since the beginning of time. However, there’s a good reason that communes remain an idealistic version of society, rather than how we actually function: because they just don’t work the way they’re supposed to.

Most of the time communes–even when formed by socially bonded, and unified people–just “don’t work out” in the long run, and break apart. Or, if the area on which a commune is built is owned by a person willing to continue the process, the members of that commune turn over many times through the years, never maintaining for long. Occasionally, communes devolve into truly horrific ends, such as the massacre of Jonestown where nearly a thousand people died, rather than admit the failure of their commune, or the murders committed by the Manson Family.

But however a commune ends, or continues to limp along, sustaining them is, even according to avid believers, very difficult, and success is based off personality factors, infrastructure, not ideals, as the mythos suggests. Merely believing the same things does not, in fact, lead to sustainable living conditions.

Which brings us to dear old Eduardo Serio, of Black Jaguar White Tiger, otherwise known as Papa Bear, and his lengthy “Papa Bear Chronicles”. As the hashtag suggests the Papa Bear Chronicles chronicle Serio’s largely directionless commentary on “life”. One such post, made several weeks ago, addressed Serio’s “haters” with a decidedly superior air, proclaiming that “contrary to 99 percent of “Sanctuaries”, my kids live in Prides, so they’re super happy playing with each other” and therefore don’t need “entertainment”. He goes on to say that other big cat groups “don’t have the capacity to look after whole Prides which obviously require more money, more personnel, more knowledge and intuition.”

This lofty post was subsequently followed just recently, by an unrelated post in which Serio thanks a known BJWT supporter, saying that “Beverly, Merida, Matilda, Bedrock, and Bedrock Love their new playground”.

Now, aside from the fact that this graciousness directly contradicts Serio’s own post stating that his cats don’t need any enrichment aside from their own interactions, the “playground” pictured is little more than scraps of wood nailed together, and in a weird configuration, at that. It took us a few minutes to sort out that the structure was nothing more than a replica of the children’s play equipment so often featured in Serio’s backyard. Because child’s play sets are completely appropriate for big cat enrichment–enrichment that BJWT cats don’t even need.

But I digress. Back to communes, or, in the case of BJWT “Prides”. You see, despite all of his droning of life theories, and higher enlightenment, all Eduardo Serio does is parrot the musings and theology of actual philosophers (and some of those hold grievously flawed beliefs) All he does with his “Prides” and the internal structure of BJWT, is attempt to replicate the Peaceable Kingdom, with himself featured as David in the lions den, or Jesus, or God, for that matter, able to walk amongst the “wild beasts” without harm, due to the purity of his own heart. Think I’m being sarcastic? Just go check out the Papa Bear Chronicles, I’m drawing from Serio’s own ramblings.

What Papa Bear doesn’t explain to the adoring fans who hang on his every illogical, and misrepresented words of wisdom, is the fact that by forcing his animals into these communal “Prides” Serio is actually robbing them of their own birthrights as big cats.

In his “Papa Bear Chronicle” regarding the lack of enrichment for BJWT cats, he posted a photo of an actual sub-Saharan pride of lions, lounging in dust, surrounded by nothing, not even brush. This was the perfect foil against the “haters” who question his lack of enrichment. However, it does nothing to address his own cats, because of all Serio’s “Prides” only a few are actually comprised solely of lions. The rest of them contain multiple species of cat. And of all of those multiple species of cat, only lions inhabit sub-Saharan conditions on a full-time basis. The other species present in these forced “Prides” evolved for thousands of years–and wild members continue to inhabit–rainforests, and other heavily forested, tropical regions.

Lions, in general, are poor climbers, and while in recent years, there’s been documentation of “tree-climbing lions” in several areas, the behavior is largely learned by observation within those isolated prides. Mechanically, lions are not built for climbing, and as a species, they remain “ground-bound” aside from occasional lounging, or climbing up short trees to get a better view of their surroundings.

In sharp contrast, leopards spend some 60% or more of their life off the ground, and in trees, or other elevated positions. Though they might cross paths with lions in a natural setting, leopards are completely solitary animals. Furthermore, science postulates that one of the definitive factors dictating their evolution as “tree dwellers” was the present of lions in shared territories, as lions view leopards as part of the food chain, and regularly kill and eat leopards.

So, right off the bat, Serio is forcing two apex predators from completely opposing evolutionary tracts, one of which historically consumes the other for food, into a “family group”. Then he immediately removes a fundamental foundation stone of the existence of the leopard, by providing them with no way of getting off the ground.

Jaguars are also extremely solitary and territorial creatures (one reason Eddie has never been able to get some of his to live in his beloved “Prides”, though he suggests the problem is with the cats’ personalities, not their species) who spend huge amounts of time in trees. In other areas (jaguars are the widest ranging of all panthera) jaguars are forced to use rocky outcroppings and even cacti to stand-in for treetops. But the preferred territory of jaguars is dense forests, where they are the predominant ambush killer of the big cat world.

Jaguars might spend days at a time up in the canopy

Papa Bear’s barren wastelands of cubicle style open ground enclosures provide the polar opposite of the world that jaguars have evolved to inhabit. It’s no surprise, then, when many of Serio’s jaguars hide in their night boxes, as those tiny shelters are the only available cover for an animal accustomed to spending its entire life hidden from view.

Tiger habitat, meanwhile, also consists of deep forests, both deciduous and rain.

A Sumatran tiger caught on a study camera

They do not, however, enjoy sub-Saharan deserts.

Tigers can spend cumulatively years of their lives in water. Some have even been documented swimming between islands.

But alas, according to Papa Bear’s Chronicles, his tigers don’t need “pools” because they have other big cats to play with! Never mind that tigers, leopards, and jaguars are all–by natural evolution–devoutly solitary animals, uninterested in living in “Prides”. And never mind that leopards–the smallest, and meekest of these species–are often, in a natural setting, eaten by lions, and killed by other larger big cats.

While Papa Bear beats his chests and boasts about his “Prides” he fails to acknowledge the fact that within his forced family “Prides” every member of every species of cat is denied the most basic yearnings and requirements needed to offer that cat the most natural and enjoyable life possible.

Eddie’s 100% is comprised of only about 25% of what each species of animal actually needs. Largely, shelter, food, and water. Just the barest things required to sustain life. But for each mixed “Pride" he boasts about, every species within it is being deprived of 75% of what they need to enjoy life. BJWT fans will insist that the cats are all “happy” but they base their perceptions off of primarily what Papa Bear says, rather than actually grasping the dichotomy of each individual species.

For a domestic house pet, like a dog or domestic cat, simply providing food, shelter, water, and companionship is all that’s needed in order to declare that the animal possesses a happy, sustainable life.

But these factors are only a fraction of what’s needed to make captivity acceptable for a wild animal.

And if you don’t understand that, then you really are viewing the cats of BJWT as pets, which is exactly how Eduardo Serio houses and maintains them.

If BJWT fans truly believe that all lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, ocelots, etc. need to in order have a happy life is food, water, shelter, and human companionship, then all they see at BJWT are large pets, not captive wild animals.

Despite often posting for photos like this, Serio claims than his animals are not pets, and are not maintained as pets

BWJT is nothing more than a commune of species which looks idealistic, but which like so many communes before it, is forced, unnatural, and imminently doomed to fail.

Edorsments Do Not An Expert Make

Edorsments Do Not An Expert Make

Virtually everyone has seen Matthew McConaughey's bizarre and sometimes completely pointless Lincoln commercials. They’ve been fodder for SNL, and a plethora of memes, and online jokes. And yet, sales of Lincoln vehicles leapt 25% instantly upon the release of McConaughey’s first commercial for them, and their sales rates have continued to climb. This, in a nutshell, is the entire purpose behind celebrity endorsements: to boost sales, and public awareness of a product. It’s kind of a big thing. Big enough that the Federal Trade Commission has outlines regarding it, including nonprofits who used celebrities to advertise themselves. (Of course, it’s trickier for the US FTC to exert any sway over a nonprofit in another country like, say *ahem* Mexico).

If you were purchasing a vehicle, however, you wouldn’t buy one simply because you saw Matthew McConaughey advertise it. After all, McConaughey is an actor, not a professional mechanic, or engineer. You’d look up professionally published reports on Lincoln cars, crash tests, mileage tests, you’d check consumer reports, and probably look up actual feedback from owners of Lincoln vehicles.

The public adores celebrities, and when those celebrities tout a product, or Instagram a clothing designer, or other “little person” it creates what’s called “Buzz Marketing”. This “buzz” generates a huge amount of attention for whatever, or whoever, is being discussed, or posted about. Instagram is currently the leader in 'buzz marketing” with established celebrities getting as much as $300,000.00 per post where a product is named. But, that said, Kim Kardashian listing what she takes to alleviate morning sickness does not make her a medical expert. Cristiano Ronaldo’s posts about TAG Heuer doesn’t make him a watch craftsmen. And Kylie Jenner’s posts touting Puma’s Fierce Trainer does not, in fact, make Jenner a fitness expert.

But here’s where the disconnect comes in.

While the public would never declare any of the celebrities mentioned here as “experts” in the fields of industry from whence the products they’re selling come, that same public looks at Paris Hilton smothering a week-old tiger cub with kisses, and instantly declares the place behind that interaction–Black Jaguar White Tiger–the bestest most amazing and perfect sanctuary in the world, and they declare Eduardo Serio the smartest big cat expert on the planet. Because, you know, Paris Hilton said so! Eduardo Serio claims to have very few “celebrities” visit BJWT, but the fact is, dozens and dozens of celebrities from all across the public arena have gone to BJWT, played with the never-ending stream of “rescued” big cat cubs, and subsequently posted those exploits all over their social media accounts creating, you guessed it, “buzz marketing” for BJWT.

Absurdly, and perversely, Serio himself, has repeatedly used the popularity of BJWT as a foil for the fact that the foundation has no actual basis of expertise or functional knowledge of big cat biology, or husbandry. In Eddie’s own words (paraphrased) “With 5 million friends, how can we not be experts?” Really? That’s like saying “With 10,000 miles of driving experience, how can I not be a Formula 1 driver?” Well, honey, because you’ve never been trained to drive a race car.

But having a big mouth, and lots of celebrity friends (let’s not forget, many of these celebrities were Serio’s neighbors and party-buddies back in old LA) does not make you an expert on something you’ve never received even remedial training in. Serio continues to flaunt his own ignorance and lack of scientific knowledge on a daily basis. In just the last week, he’s posted a photo of himself “wearing” a highly endangered species of bird, in a house, on his head, like an avant garde hat. He’s posted another specimen of the same species–which he claims to single-handedly be bringing back from the brink of extinction–in his personal closet, along with a lion cub. Because, you know, endangered birds, and lion cubs, no way that could go wrong and end in injury to the highly endangered bird. Then just today, he posted a video of himself, in his bathrobe, no less, improperly bottle feeding a lion cub. You’d think that three years of aspiration induced pneumonia, some cases of which have resulted in death of the cubs, would have taught him the hard way to just lay the cubs on their stomach–like every big cat husbandry guideline states should be done–but nope. Dear old Papa Bear is going to just keep doing it his way. Pneumonia and all.

Which brings us back to celebrity endorsements.

If you wouldn’t buy a car just because you saw a celebrity advertising it, why would you support a group that promotes keeping wild animals as pets just because you saw a celebrity visit and treat the cats like pets?

Seriously, think about it. Then do a few Google searches looking for BJWT endorsements from anyone who qualifies as a bonafide big cat expert in the conservation industry. You won’t find any, because no established big cat expert will ever endorse what Eddie’s doing. Hell, even Kevin Richardson, the famed Lion Whisperer, won’t support BJWT, despite that Serio has publicly cited Kevin as his inspiration. So we’re right back to McConaughey selling us Lincoln cars. The question is, are you going to research your vehicle? Or buy it because you saw McConaughey drive it?