Folk, I’m gonna vaguepost for a sec here, but it’s an important one.
If you are in the United States and not employed by a zoo or sanctuary or a veterinarian working with a facility, if anyone for any reason offers to allow you to touch a big cat, please do not do it.
No matter how much you want to, no matter how much it is a dream, understand that it is a violation of federal law that could get the facility the cat lives at in very serious trouble. It does not matter if it is through the fence, or in the context of a trained behavior, or if the cat is on a leash. Even if it feels “safe” or they swear the facility condones it.
It’s starting to appear that lots of zookeepers have not been informed appropriately about the scope of the law - or in cases where they do know it’s inappropriate, they are sometimes being overridden by their management and forced to allow encounters. (Even at accredited facilities!)
We do not know exactly what the penalties could be for that happening within an accredited zoo (yay badly implemented laws) but it typically comes down to being risk to a) the cat’s welfare b) the facility’s ability to have any big cats at all and c) someone, either the facility owner or the person offering, could go to jail or pay serious fines. There are two instances of this happening at AZA zoos that were leaked recently and we may now find out how bad it’s going to get for them.
Lots of facilities will have big cat pelts as educational biofacts that they will allow you to touch. You do not ever need to take the risk associated with touching a live big cat - generally anywhere, and especially in the US.
And for some reason, if you ever are in that situation and unethical enough to actually touch the cat? Don’t post it on social media and definitely don’t make that post public. 🙄
I literally got to touch three different big cat pelts today in one zoo visit (didn’t take a photo of the lion one). You! Don’t! Need! To! Touch! Live! Cats!
The volunteer did not know where these pieces of pelt came from - they often don’t. Generally in the US they are either sourced from US Fish and Wildlife confiscations (as part of a collab for educational programs) or they’re actually from previous collection animals. The latter is much rarer because it’s pretty emotionally hard for staff, but it means you can touch them without worrying it’s an animal you might have loved.
