On Saturday my youth group took a trip to a pumpkin farm, with a corn maze and pumpkin market and petting zoo. Normally I'm fine with petting zoos, but this one went too far. In a tent were rows of cages with exotic animals including, Bongos, zebras, lynxes, arctic foxes, black bears, a giraffe, many birds, and worst of all, two lion cubs and a white Bengal tiger cub. The tiger cub was also in a cage, with out a mother. White Bengals don't really occur naturally, many of the white cubs born in zoos today and the product of inter breeding, and many are coming out with deformities. The lion cubs were in a glass box, and there was a line to get your picture taken with one. A handler would take them out of the box, and let you hold it until they got a picture (they just sat there, didn't squirm at all, which means they were probably being drugged). These cubs were at an age that they should still be nursing and with a mother 24/7. Chances are the petting zoo got most of these animals from the black market, and even if they weren't, in my opinion, this has gone too far. Animals, especially lions and tigers, aren't teddy bears, they don't want to cuddle up with you and let you take their picture. And petting zoos like this are sending out the completely wrong message, it's already killing animals, and soon will end up killing a person.

What that zoo is doing is horrible. Wild animals are just that, WILD.
I hope those animals are sent somewhere safe when they get taken away.
The only time that people should keep wild animals as pets is when they are rehabilitating them or raising an endangered species. Even then, there are requirements for owning them designed to keep both the animals and the people involved safe and healthy.

Tell ALF or ELF, then they'll get busted out of there.

This should be done as a last resort

lol, not serious.

You could contact peta or the aspca. I would.

Exactly!

The problem is, around here, those laws aren't being enforced, or people don't know enough to report it.

I'm contacting the Chicago ASPCA about it. I'm hoping they don't know and will do something about it. If they don't, I'll be even more ticked.

But, instead of reporting it, people were looking at the screaming lion cub (which was desperately trying to get out), and saying "AWW! How cute!!!"

Um, aren't there certain things called laws that don't allow things like lions and tigers and bears to be kept at things like petting zoos?

I said "things" quite a few times. ^.^

But seriously, I thought there were laws. Maybe it varies by state.