Leash those who make tigers pets

Tigers are not pets. It cannot be said any clearer than this. And yet, for some unfathomable reason, people insist on keeping them.

A three-day chase after a tigress escaped a private farm in the south of Johannesburg culminated in the animal being shot dead after it killed two dogs and injured a man. As usual, the animal paid for human folly.

A healthy male tiger in the wild can weigh up to 300kg. It’s bigger than a male lion and the Walkerville farmer involved was keeping a female – now dead – and a male.

WATCH: Sheba the escaped tiger killed

In August 2020, the Sandton SPCA cautioned a Houghton resident over two white tiger cubs it believed were being kept in contravention of the Animals Protection Act.

There have been other incidents where the line between humans and tigers has been blurred and now, someone has been injured.

There will probably be a court case – if the owner cannot buy his way out of the threatened legal action.

Because tigers are not native to South Africa, there seems little incentive to regulate their entry into the country. Listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as endangered, tigers once covered central, eastern and southern Asia.

Much like the uproar when we see cheetahs on leashes in other countries, we should be doing the same when it comes to all wildlife being kept as pets.

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According to panthera.org, 4 500 tigers were estimated to exist in 2022, a potential 40% increase from 3 200 in 2015. Increase or not, much like our beloved rhinos which are under attack by poachers, the tiger population is under real threat. Shooting a breeding-age female really does little to help the global population.

Private ownership has to be ended and government has had numerous warnings, with close shaves from these alien predators.

For the love of nature, let government do something now before we have to write, we told you so.