Big Cats and Public Safety Protection Act

Press Conference TODAY

Big cat possession and breeding is at epidemic proportions in the U.S. It is estimated that there could be up to 20,000 big cats in private ownership. The animals are often kept in squalid conditions and dangerously close to residential areas. 

IFAW is helping lead a press conference on Capitol Hill U.S. with Reps. Howard ‘Buck’ McKeon (R-CA) and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) to discuss the importance of passing the Big Cats and Public Safety Protection Act (H.R. 4122).

Please urge your U.S. Representative to attend the Big Cats Press Conference on Capitol Hill.

http://www.ifaw.org/united-states/get-involved/one-year-after-zanesville-join-us-capitol-hill

Support the Big Cats and Public Safety Protection Act

(H.R. 4122 and S. 3547)

On February 29, 2012 Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA) and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) introduced bipartisan H.R. 4122 to prohibit the private possession and breeding of big cats. On September 13, 2012 Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) introduced the Senate companion bill, S. 3547. The bill will insure that lions, tigers and other dangerous big cats – which are kept as pets and exploited in roadside zoos and traveling exhibits – do not threaten public safety, diminish the global big cat conservation efforts, or end up living in deplorable conditions where they can be subject to mistreatment and cruelty.

The debate over private ownership of big cats garnered national attention in October 2011 when the owner of a backyard menagerie in Zanesville, Ohio, opened the cages of his tigers, leopards, lions, wolves, bears and monkeys before committing suicide. Local police, who were neither trained nor properly equipped to deal with a situation of that magnitude, were forced to shoot and kill nearly 50 animals—38 of them big cats—before these dangerous animals could enter populated areas.

The bill would make it illegal to possess any big cat except at accredited zoos and wildlife sanctuaries where they can be properlycared for and she