Hearing that Craig Busch is appearing in the UK this weekend got me thinking... The main reasoning behind getting big cats declawed seems to be to allow closer contact and interaction with humans. But is this misguided? There's now a good bit of evidence that declawing domestic cats increases the chance that they'll bite (and probably be nervouse and agressive in general). Since it seems that generally big cats do even worse than little ones when declawed, you'd expect this effect to be greater: whether from insecurity due to being disabled, or chronic pain. Was the tiger that killed Dalu declawed?
Enrichment would be harder to give to them if they didn't have claws, nor would they show some species specific behaviour, which negates the educational role of zoo's. Surely no zoo declaws their big cats?
None that I know of in the UK,also none of the Big Cats used in the Great British Circus are either,it only seems to be idiots that want to get close to there gets but,don't have the skill to do it with out de-clawing them in the first place!!
Now I think about it I probably should have posted this in general... only posted it here as it was sparked by 'the lion man' appearing in the UK (for anyone that doesn't know, he had many of his cats declawed. He now says he was misadvized that it was OK... ) Declawing has never been something really done in the UK, and is now definitely ilegal (you can't do 'mutilating' surgery without a very good medical reason, in this case that might mean removing a single deformed/badly injured didgit, but not declawing a cat so it couldn't scratch you). Sadly it is still very common in some countries, notably the US. Many domestic cat kittens are declawed at the same time as being neutered (which tends to be done earlier in the US, as early as 10 weeks). There many big cats in private ownership are also declawed. Here's a good place to start if you want to read more (especially check out the FAQ): ban cat declawing | animal welfare | The Paw Project So Chrissy, no good zoo would declaw their big cats, even in the States. But it does happen to many big cats. Specifically to this, most of the cats at Zion Gardens in New Zealand were declawed during the time Craig Busch 'The Lion Man' was running it.
