Poor Welfare Indicators and Husbandry Practices at Lion (Panthera Leo) "Cub-Petting" Facilities: Evidence from Public YouTube Videos.

ABSTRACT: There is growing concern about captive lion hunting and breeding operations in South Africa, including cub-petting tourism. For the first time, we assess the quality of cub-petting facilities and code the stress behaviors of lion cubs when handled by tourists by analyzing four stress-related behaviors and six indicators of poor husbandry in 49 YouTube videos of tourist-lion cub interactions (from at least 11 South African safari parks, 2008-2019). We also categorized videos as regular tourism vs. voluntourism (tourism under the guise of helping those in need). We found a median of four poor husbandry practices per video, with all but two videos involving very young cubs (under 7 months) and the majority (61%) involving cubs estimated under 3 months old. Two videos claimed to show cubs as y

SUBMITTER: Chorney S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9597823 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature