Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Oradea Zoo Lion Update

I was aware of what happened with the Oradea lions, but didn't want to have to admit that man is still that ignorant, or to offer free press for the dim, shady world of "captive/rescue animal sanctuaries." Instead of treating the lions to a life of living like William Wallace in a medieval Gaelic Scottish Highland mud hut, I gotta wonder how much better off lions of the world would be, given these have no useful genetic material, if they had been euthanized and the funds raised/used to build and fence this "complex" and ship them from Romania to England, had been instead donated to any number of great conservation organizations such as

Lion Conservation Fund: About Us

LionSaving Wildlife - Wildlife Conservation Society

or at the very least, fund a study to research if there is an interest and future revenue in the area for a zoo in Oradea, and then rehabilitate the zoo at it's current location and finance an operating infra structure for it's continuation into a proper future.

2 comments:

Steve said...

Wade - are you endorsing this "fund"?

Do you know that it's directors put all the money into lion conservation and don't stay in 5 star hotels and travel in the pointy end of aircraft?

Steve said...

Don't get too carried away with just one picture. It is my understanding that the lions have a proper night house as well - not just a mud hut.

I also understand that a lot of the support, in money or in kind, would not have been forthcoming if the lions were euthanised so lion conservation hasn't really missed out on much. For example, the airfreight from Europe to the UK was donated. The guy who owns the airline gave empty space on one of his freighters. Doesn't mean that he would have given an equivalent amount in cash to a conservation fund.

But, the huge publicity surrounding the movement of the lions to a Pommy zoo must surely have made people more concious of the plight of lions generally?