Tiger Rescue Goes on Trial

The tiger cubs prowling the cages at the Fund for Animals shelter here in rural San Diego County look like big, stuffed toys, with their oversized feet, mischievous faces and thick, striped fur.

These cubs, 5 to 11 months old, were seized from Tiger Rescue, a facility in Colton that calls itself a retirement home for animals that have appeared in movies or TV commercials and that otherwise would be destroyed or deserted.

An investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state Department of Fish and Game led to the seizure of the cubs and 14 misdemeanor charges against the owner, Jon Weinhart, who is accused of improperly caring for and breeding the cats.

Weinhart denied the charges, saying he and his staff have diligently cared for such animals for 30 years.

“Our mission is to give these animals the best possible care they can receive from man, who has destroyed their habitat,” said Marla Smith, director of Tiger Rescue.

But prosecutors said the cats were overcrowded and underfed.

“The regulations are designed to protect the welfare of the animals, and the evidence suggests very strongly that the people who run the place were not meeting their obligations,” said Vic Stull, a supervising deputy district attorney for San Bernardino County. “Fecal matter was not cleaned up, there was not enough water and enclosures were too small.”

The facility did not have records to show that its tiger cubs were received from owners elsewhere or born to mothers adopted while pregnant, he said.

Although Tiger Rescue is licensed to keep big cats, it is not permitted to breed them.

Weinhart said Tiger Rescue imported several pregnant female tigers last year, which bore the cubs after they arrived. He said that he was unable to prove that to investigators, but that he would do so in court. The case goes to jury trial today in San Bernardino Central Court.

Authorities confiscated 10 cubs, placing seven at the Ramona shelter and three at Shambala Preserve, actress Tippi Hedren’s wildlife sanctuary in Acton.

The tigers have retained their frisky charm, but at sizes ranging from that of a Labrador retriever to a leopard, they are beginning to show their stripes.

The babies of the lot, three 5-month-olds, lounge in their cage, gnawing on beef bones or sniffing at visitors. Believed to be a mix of Siberian tigers, the biggest breed, and Sumatran, the most aggressive, they switch frequently from repose to fierce play, said shelter manager Chuck Traisi.

Their 11-month-old cousins live in a larger enclosure nearby. At about a third of their eventual weight, the cats are already larger than male mountain lions.

Weinhart said the cubs are becoming fiercer. Accustomed to human contact, he said, they were walked and trained daily at Tiger Rescue. Traisi’s staff maintains a more hands-off approach, avoiding entering the cages with the cats.

“They’ve turned them into dangerous animals for the handlers and the community,” Weinhart said.

But Traisi said that despite their early nurturing, the tigers are predators whose instincts make them unsafe for human handling.

An estimated 10,000 big cats live with private owners in the United States, many more than remain in the wild, said Richard Farinato, director of the captive wildlife protection program of the Humane Society of the United States. About half of the captive cats are tigers.

People are drawn to their “grace, beauty and ferocity,” Farinato said. “Plus, they’re easy to breed.”

They’re also lucrative.

“Many of the folks that simply have these cats as private pets have learned that if they start calling themselves a sanctuary or a retirement home or animal preserve, they may be able to fund-raise,” Farinato said.

With a menagerie of tigers, leopards, African lions and mountain lions, Tiger Rescue offers tours of its grounds, charging $7 for adults and $4 for children, and offers photos with baby tigers for $20, according to its Web site. The site also requests donations of supplies, equipment and money.

Although many states allow private owners to keep and even breed big cats, California is one of a few that forbid such activity without special permits, Farinato said. Tiger Rescue’s permit allowed it to keep big cats, but Department of Fish and Game Warden Rick Fischer said the permit had expired. Others said the cubs’ cramped quarters did not appear to meet conditions for renewal.

“They couldn’t run, they couldn’t jump, they couldn’t play,” Traisi said. “They could barely lie down.”

Experts fear that such captive cats will eventually meet even worse fates.

Unwanted adult tigers are sometimes slaughtered for traditional Chinese medicine, said Simon Habel, director of wildlife traffic at World Wildlife Fund, United States. Others are sold to game ranches in Texas, where they are shot in corrals in a sport advertised as “canned hunts.”

“Baby tigers bring in money,” Traisi said. “Once the cute factor is gone, God knows what happens to them.”