Kalahari Resorts - Stop Abusing Tiger and Lion Cubs!

I am shocked and disappointed to learn that Kalahari Resorts regularly hosts photo and petting exhibits featuring live lion and tiger cubs. These exhibits may be legal, but they are also incredibly harmful to animal welfare, public safety, and wildlife conservation, and Kalahari must stop patronizing them immediately.

For several years, Kalahari has been contracting with privately-owned animal parks that sell photos and encounters with baby lions and tigers in the lobbies of the Wisconsin Dells and Sandusky resort locations. These exhibitors rip the cubs from their mothers shortly after birth and bring them to Kalahari's lobbies, where they are displayed like merchandise in a tiny glass enclosure until someone pays to pet or take a photo with them. Because federal law only allows cubs between the ages of 8 to 12 weeks to be handled by the public, the cubs are quickly discarded into the wildlife trade after growing too large to use for photos, which puts animal welfare, public safety, and wildlife conservation in jeopardy.

To ensure that cubs "pose" for photos at Kalahari, they are physically manhandled by the exhibitors. The videos that guests have taken in Kalahari's lobbies are so disturbing that legitimate wildlife sanctuaries have used them as examples of why cub photo displays are abusive. In one, a newborn tiger, so young its eyes have barely opened, screams in protest as a handler prepares to "pose" it for a photo. Frightened young cubs flinch in the tiny enclosure in the Wisconsin Dells lobby, with nowhere to escape from excited children banging on the glass. A negligent handler fails to notice an unsupervised tiger cub falling off of a 4-foot tall photo platform. Other videos show handlers swinging cubs through the air, pushing on their heads, blowing in their faces, and hitting them in the nose with toys, plastic bags, and other objects -- all for the sake of profit. This is unacceptable, and it's a shame that Kalahari is associated with such abuse.

What's more, the exhibitors that bring the cubs to Kalahari have long, documented histories of animal abuse and wildlife crime.

The Humane Society of the United States warns that William Coburn, who provides animals to Kalahari's Sandusky location, has been cited with dozens of serious violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including using an unvaccinated 3½-week-old tiger cub for more than 50 photos with the public in a three day period at Kalahari Resort, storing bear cubs in a garage, and housing a 6-week-old tiger cub in an enclosure with a cement floor and only a plastic dog kennel as shelter from the sun. There are also reports that Coburn sells African Lions to be slaughtered for the legal, but distasteful, "exotic meat" industry.

Likewise, at Kalahari's Wisconsin Dells resort, cubs are provided by animal broker and convicted wildlife trafficker Mark Schoebel, who also owns and operates Timbavati Wildlife Park. In his book Animal Underworld, investigative reporter Alan Green details Schoebel's long history of wildlife crime. In the 1990s, Schoebel plead guilty to four counts of wildlife offenses for selling black bears that had grown too large for use as "photo cubs" to be slaughtered and shipped overseas to Korea for use in traditional Asian medicine. In 1998, he put human lives at risk by knowingly selling prairie dogs infected with a deadly zoonotic disease. In 2002, Schoebel sold 11 young lions and tigers to an illegal wildlife killing ring which slaughtered the animals in order to sell their parts, and as recently as 2010, Wisconsin state officials investigated Schoebel and requested that he be prosecuted for illegal imports and exports of tigers, deer, moose, and other wildlife. 

Are these the men that Kalahari wants to be associated with?

Furthermore, while Kalahari Resorts has made some commendable strides in its' "green initiatives", there is nothing "green" or "responsible" about the exploitation of endangered animals. Scores of conservation and animal welfare organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, The Detroit Zoological Foundation, TRAFFIC, and experts from the AZA's Tiger Species Survival Plan have petitioned the USDA to ban all public contact with baby big cats due to the threat that these "photo exhibits" pose to both animal welfare and the conservation of tigers and lions in the wild. Resort guests are becoming more educated, too. They're learning that what seems like a harmless, special encounter is, in reality, just one brief moment in a lifetime of misery and abuse for these vulnerable young animals, and they're starting to turn away from businesses that support cub petting and photo sales. In fact, over 133,000 people have pledged not to stay at a Kalahari Resort until the live cub exhibits are stopped.

Tiger and lion cubs may be adorable, but they're wild animals; not toys, props, or decorations. The success of Kalahari's new Poconos location, which does not feature live animal displays, proves that guests don't need to touch a tiger to have a good time.

For the sake of animal welfare, wildlife conservation, and Kalahari's reputation, Kalahari Resorts must permanently stop live cub displays at all locations as soon as possible. Until it does, my family will be vacationing with a more responsible business.