“Put animals like this back where Mother nature intended them to be and leave them alone, that is just my opinion. “
Tatiana was born in Denver, in captivity, and was placed in SF to breed with another tiger, Tony.
Tigers are close to extinction, the zoos across the world are keeping the breed alive - if let loose they would be killed for their pelts and for Asian “cures” (they grind up and ingest various parts of the tiger’s body...you don’t want to know what parts.) Poachers have decimated the breeds.
Wikipedia says there’s about 500 Siberian tigers in the wild, for what it’s worth, not sure how many are in captivity.
A lot of the time I think zoos should be closed to the public, and the breeding programs made private, to keep the animals from the public, for both side’s safety, but funding for the programs is from people paying to see them, so zoos are a necessary evil, if we don’t want tigers going extinct.
some animals are SAFER in a zoo than in the wild...