can you go into detail regarding the issues with black jaguar white tiger foundation? I'm familiar with other similar rescue foundations, but not this one.
Oh can I ever. There are so many issues it isn’t even funny, but yes, I’ll do it.
This is a still from this video, in which the guy who runs the facility carries around an oncilla kitten in his mouth because he thinks it’s fun. The text alongside the instagram video reads: “What? How else am I supposed to carry my baby? ;)”
With Black Jaguar White Tiger, it’s actually hard to know where to start. I would suggest reading this 911 Animal Abuse article, first. It’s well-cited and covers most of the bases, and sources what it can. I’m going to pull a lot of text from this recent and well written article, Fooling Millions with False Conservation, which builds on the piece by 911 Animal Abuse and covers of the recent issues. Honestly, you should just open in a new tab and read them first.
Let’s just start off that going through the owner’s (Eddie’s) instragram is actually physically sickening. Since a lot of the sourcing and really important history is covered in the links above, I’ve pulled a summary of the most egregious stuff for this article, as well as a bunch of things from instagram that are more recent than that article. All the screencaps are mine, and the quotes are all from Fooling Millions with False Conservation.
“If you’ve ever wet your feet in the world of big cat conservation, chances are you’ve heard of the infamous Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation. Or, perhaps you’ve followed the Foundation religiously on Instagram since they first began touting “cute” photos of cubs in 2013. Created in 2013 by self-proclaimed Mexican businessman Eduardo Serio, the Foundation seeks to rescue large cats from a life of abuse and exploitation to provide them a cruelty-free forever home. Or so it claims. (…) Taking a gander through the Foundation’s many social media accounts reveals a disturbing and twisted theme. Interactions with cubs, adolescents and fully mature cats seem to flourish at the Foundation’s headquarters in Mexico with surprising tenacity. The Foundation openly admits that the cats in their care are “constantly getting human warmth and attention so they can develop and grow in a nurtured and loving environment” during Stage 1, in which the cats appear to be raised by hand inside a home, reportedly by house keepers with absolutely no training or big cat care experience.”
Yes. This is totally an appropriate way to house big cats… three regular lions, three lighter lions that look like those ‘white lion’ color morphs, a tiger and a black panther.
“In September 2015, an article written by the 911 Animal Abuse website sought to clarify many of the misgivings advocates have about the Foundation, which “rescues” cats at an alarming rate. As the piece pointed out, “He [Serio] claims to have “saved” over 30 cats in his first year of operation, which is scary…he probably wants to “save them all,“ but at that rate, things are going to get out of hand very quickly. Unless he has a lot of resources or learns to say “no"…it’s going to turn into a hoarding situation. Serio supposedly has 100 acres of land, but the enclosures are already starting to look pretty crowded.””
Where the fuck do all these ‘rescue’ cats come from?
“The Foundation regularly documents the consistent influx of cubs through social media (usually newborn or days old) which they claim to rescue from abuse and exploitation. (…) One source (who shall also remain anonymous) claims that the Foundation doesn’t make transparent to anyone where the cubs and cats are really rescued from. The source related that on one occasion, they asked Serio where Tierra (one of the Foundation’s cats) was rescued from, and Serio responded saying that he did not know.If true, that should ring alarm bells because, if the Foundation does rescue all of its cats (as it claims), should these rescues not be well documented, and shouldn’t the Foundation’s owner himself know where each cat in his care has originated from?”
Yeah, this is a really young cub to have come from any ‘rescue’. It’s so young it should still be in a den box nursing and pretty much hasn’t opened it’s eyes yet. Cubs this young have delicate immune systems, need to stay warm, and can’t defecate without having it stimulated by a mother’s tongue.
“The Foundation’s official website does not provide any information regarding the origin of each cat, nor the numerous cubs the Foundation consistently receives into its care. Nor does it make transparent which cats were saved from what fate - though it has been reported by others that at one time or another, the website had included brief information about a select few of the Foundation’s cats (the website no longer contains this information). (…) The article also took issue with Serio’s firm decision to never spay nor neuter the cats in his care, supposedly because he believes such preventative procedures to be cruel and may deny his cats a “natural life.” But the life the Foundation provides its rescued cats — many of which the public and several advocacy groups, organizations and sanctuaries suspect are not rescues — is quite far from any natural life they may have had.”
The text of this BJWT instagram post reads:
Q: Does the Black Jaguar-White Tiger Foundation Spay/Neuter their rescued angels?
A: ABSOLUTELY NOT. None of our kids are spayed or neutered unless they come to us like that. We prefer to use less invasive methods and technology, the oldest method is to separate the male from the female when she comes into heat, our most usual option is giving birth control injections every six months. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring. We would Love that someday in the future our Angels could help repopulate the Jaguar, Lion, Tiger and Leopard population in Mexico, Africa and Asia. It is very easy to spay or neuter a rescued Angel, but in ten years things will change and we could have recovered their natural habitat. ALWAYS THINK BIG. ALWAYS…
Okay, so aside from the fact that it’s kind of creepy that he refers to them as ‘angels’ instead of cats, and talks about them being his ‘kids’ and he’s ‘big papa’, uh… let’s talk about how separation isn’t always effective or easy. One, cats can mate through fences and most of those fences are only single-layered. Two, it’s really hard to tell when cats are of reproductive age (That’s how CARE ended up with those lion cubs on accident).
Let’s look at the lives those cubs lead before we talk about Eddie’s really misguided conservation efforts.
Things like this bottle photo are really common on his instragram. Any person who does any sort of animal husbandry will tell you that another animal’s milk isn’t good for any species - milk fat and protein conservations are super specific for each species that produces them, and cow’s milk is really sugary and bad for pretty much any cat. But hey, it’s cute, right? Those cubs are old enough they should be eating solid food, too, but who can pass up a photo op like this for the sake of animal health?
“Certain members of the Foundation can additionally be found videoing one another feeding newborn cubs — something they do improperly. There’s a clear disregard for the proper care of young, infantile cubs as the need to impress social media followers takes over. As is evidenced inthis article written by Big Cat Rescue, in which the feeding of young cubs is thoroughly explained, the staff at BJWT have yet to learn how to truly care for a cub.”
These cats are raised in a crowded and inappropriate environment, videos often showing up to six or seven cubs in a room, with Eddie or with famous ‘guests’.
“Celebrities can often be found visiting the Foundation’s Mexico-based headquarters, where it is documented across several social media platforms that each celebrity has the opportunity to interact closely — and often — with the cats.”
Speaking of, the below screenshot is from a video that shows the type of interactions with cubs that are encouraged by Eddie. Not only does he encourage them to crawl all over him, he never pulls contact with them as they get older (like pretty much all reputable facilities and even most of the bad ones do). In that video he’s encouraging an adolescent tiger to treat him like prey, which is just irresponsible and stupid when everyone at the facility goes free-contact with all the cats.
Actually, he encourages stupid and dangerous interactions with all cats of all ages for the machismo and the internet popularity.
Eddie is also really irresponsible about allowing big cats to interact with other animals, such as his pet dogs and what look to be pigs and other farmyard animals.
“The risk of canine distemper, which can be a seriously dangerous and even fatal situation for large cats, appears to be of least concern to the Foundation. “
Speaking of canids, let’s meet his most recent “rescue”, a “wolf” puppy who came in missing an ear.
First off, gentian violet is a stain and not an appropriate wound dressing. Sometimes it can be used to treat ulcers and burns, but it’s not appropriate medical care for a freaking open wound. If it’s blu-kote that’s a little better, but that’s still a topical spray and not a medical dressing.
Second, it’s really unlikely that this is a wolf puppy or even a high-content hybrid. Wolves breed seasonally, and it’s way too early in the year for a puppy to be this old. Although it’s hard to phenotype puppies accurately, she’s got white patches on her chest and that’s not something you see show up until you’re looking at fairly low-content wolfdogs.
Assuming Indira is a wolf, he’s still raising her badly. Wolf and wolfdog puppies really need bite inhibition work, but he thinks it’s funny to post videos of her gnawing on his hands. Oiiiii.
Okay, so now let’s talk about the one really contested thing. Did he declaw his first rescue, Cielo, the one whose story he uses as an inspirational backstory? I think so.
For one, his silence on the topic is damning. This is a guy who will attack anyone who challenges his facility or handling of his cats and who encourages his fans to do the same - but on the topic of Cielo and declawing, he’s oddly silent.
“Earlier in 2015, for instance, Serio publicly attacked a well-known wildlife photographer (whose name shall be omitted here) calling him a “prostitute” whilst defending photographer-friend Adrian Steirn’s work — Steirn is the resident photographer for WWF (an organization I and many others wholeheartedly do not support). Additionally, Serio has been known to heavily (and hypocritically) criticize other organizations and legitimate sanctuaries on social media (like BCR) for calling him out on the exploitation at his facility. There appears to be a pattern of behaviour which is quickly becoming BJWT’s signature. “
We do have evidence from this instagram post that Cielo came to the facility with claws.
When you declaw a big cat, their feet get this very specific weird floppy look to them. You can see in this video and in this one that her feet look really strange now, especially her back ones. There’s a good shot of it in the photo below - those are really abnormal feet for a large cat.
“It seems the Foundation works with a few under- qualified individuals whose lack of specialization in big cat care and conservation is of no concern to the Foundation itself - a close source mentioned that one such “vet” at the Foundation is actually a plastic surgeon, and was apparently responsible for a supposedly botched declawing procedure of one BJWT’s cats.”
Will we ever know? Probably not. Why not? Because there’s literally no transparency about a damn thing that goes on at that facility. Remember the quote above about how there’s no information on where any of the ‘rescues’ come from? Here’s more.
“The public may not find BJWT’s methods so questionable if the Foundation offered even the slightest amount of transparency or legitimate explanation(s). Yet, transparency is not in the cards for anyone hoping to obtain any definitive answers regarding the operations and methods used by the Foundation in caring for its cats. If we thought the standards at BJWT were low, we should perhaps keep in mind that the Foundation is not an actual sanctuary, and thus does not uphold (and does not have to uphold) the same standards which any legitimately ethical sanctuary does.Sanctuary Standards, for instance, provides an in-depth analysis of the standards any ethical sanctuary should and would follow. But you don’t have to bother reading those standards, as BJWT does not appear to adhere to any of them anyway.”
“Nowhere on the Foundation’s website is it made transparent exactly where the funding they receive goes, how it is allocated, and how much funding they regularly receive from donors. For instance, the Foundation does not offer any transparent income reports or otherwise.“
“It is not unheard-of for the Foundation to suddenly go “dark” regarding some of its cats, failing to answer questions about where the cats are, how they’re doing, etc. As an example, Itzamna (one of the ligers at BJWT who was presented to the world at the same time as the liger named Ibiza) has been MIA for some time, with no explanation offered by the Foundation as to where the liger is.“
I’m not even going to get into his fake conservation goals - two years running a fake sanctuary does not a conservationist make - or his support of canned petting schemes and his photo ops with drugged cats. Or the scams that he’s appeared to have participated in. Or the fact that he uncritically posts things about keeping slow loris and bushbabies as pets. Or that fucking awful TIGERS orangutan and tiger cubs video that he thinks is beautiful, amazing love. This is not a man who should be in charge of a single animal, much less hundreds of dangerous and endangered predators.
Seriously, just go read this article that I’ve been quoting. Here’s the 911 Abuse article from 2014, too, because that’s also thorough and important.
I’ll leave you with one last thought:
To believe that “rescuing” over 200 cats from abuse, only to use them for interactions and cub petting, is somehow “conservation” is nothing but a twisted, misguided view of a Foundation who may have begun with good intentions, but has since bowed to the draw and pull of fame and notoriety. A not-so-much sanctuary for large cats, the BJWT Foundation is only perpetuating large cat exploitation by telling others to say “no” to large cat misuse whilst simultaneously excusing their own.
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