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The ultra-rich are illegally buying cheetahs as pets, leading to extinction
- mc32 7y agoUnfortunately this is nothing new. This was a thing in mogul India centuries ago, it was a thing in Europe, it was a thing in Ottoman Asia Minor and it was a thing in Roman times. The rich have always wanted to have menageries to show off their wealth.
- ryanmercer 7y ago>Unfortunately this is nothing new. An example of it being done in ancient Rome even. >In what might be the world’s oldest recorded awkward situation, the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero spent much of his term as Cilicia’s governor trying to ignore a very specific request from his former legal client Marcus Caelius Rufus. In several letters sent over the better part of a year, Caelius repeatedly begged Cicero to capture and send him a group of local leopards. He needed the animals, he explained, because he was trying to launch his political career—and nothing won over voters’ hearts better than live exotic animal hunts in the arena. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/exotic-animals-ancient-rome/475704/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/exotic-a...
- mc32 7y agoRight, I acknowledged that, but thanks for the apt illustration.
- xeromal 7y agoDid you even read his full post because he mentions Rome?
- ryanmercer 7y agoI quoted and linked an example...
- tomatotomato37 7y agoCan go even farther back; cheetahs were just as domesticated as dogs in ancient egypt two millennia before the Romans conquered the Mediterranean. Makes sense too; accounts from people who work with them say they have almost none of the "wilderness" that makes something like a tiger impossible to domesticate and are essentially really big and fast house cats.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago> are essentially really big and fast house cats Having friends with house cats, and seeing what a regular sized house cat can do to a person, a really big and fast house cat sounds scary!
- microtherion 7y agoBig and fast they are, but not all that strong. At Wild Cat Fund <https://wildcatfund.org/cats2.html> https://wildcatfund.org/cats2.html> events, the leopards are considered a lot more dangerous. I got to pet one of their cheetahs once. It packs a rather impressive purr.
- bigwavedave 7y agoI'm not trusting my family with an animal that can catch and take down a gazelle.
- djitz 7y agoApparently, there are more tigers in captivity in the US than there are in the wild. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/more-tigers-in-american-backyards-than-in-the-wild https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/more-tigers-in-america...
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoThis actually might save the cheetahs. If there is a market for living cheetahs, people might try to actually breed them in captivity. We have no shortage or house cats or dogs because those animals are pets.
- tomatotomato37 7y agoYou'd have to change public perception to where owning one is more equivalent to a horse, which is a major investment in both land and money, than to a large dog or whatever
- truculent 7y agoCan I refer you to the title
- NobodyNada 7y agoCheetahs are extremely difficult to breed in captivity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheetah#In_captivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheetah#In_captivity.
- sunstone 7y agoWell if, as they say, this is leading to the extinction of the ultra-rich then, the environment will almost certainly benefit.