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That's what she said ???

I don't get all of the negativity regarding Tiger Island? It's without a doubt a world-class facility and what's more is that they're always adding to it to be able to accommodate more animals for more breeding programs both nationally and internationally. And the back of house are exceptional, too - the kind of veterinary and dietary care those tigers/cougars receive is above and beyond what the RSPCA (you know those people who are against animal cruelty? Yeah, those ones) considers as acceptable conditions. The only perceived con about the facility is that it's not a "sanctuary" or "wildlife" sized space but rather the animals are kept in cages. (Because shit, the Coomera State School 200m down the road is a perfect place to let the tigers loose on a human/animal Discovery channel experiment, right? Tiger jailbait everywhere, man). And I totally get that. But get that tigers aren't pack animals. They are solitary, territorial, animals, so having 11 large cages instead of one big sanctuary makes sense. Half a dozen solitary animals in the same area in a "sanctuary" environment doesn't make any sense, and it means either constant human interference to keep the animals from fighting or have less animals altogether, which greatly reduces the breeding program possibilities. But since they're hand-raised and don't know any different and the "caged" environments are very spacious and the tigers are walked and exercised "literally" 24/7, I hardly see what's so bad it all really. We get to continue to see these beautiful animals in the wild through said breeding programs and donations from daily demonstrations, they're well looked after, and most importantly they're trained and not tamed with their handlers so that mutual respect is obtained and the handlers can literally play and cuddle with the tigers instead of being three feet away, gun-cocked, in hand, just incase it goes down. What's the diff and why have human interaction, you ask? With the amount of health checks the tigers go through at the facility, it's much easier on the tiger to train them to sit and stand in certain positions and be amenable to a vet's check on command instead of having to sedate animals on a regular basis to achieve the same thing. And what's more, the training not only allows them to be more capable in different environments for breeding but means you can see them in a show do various tigerly things that raises more awareness which = more donations which = more wild tigers which = no extinction anytime soon. And if they're trained, get that they're still wild predatory animals that all have different personalities and most importantly, work 90% from body language, which is a total opposite from humans, so for them to nip or bite, especially if a handler has their back turned or isn't showing the correct body language for a tiger, is totally bound to happen. From what I understand, and it's at best a theory, but tigers don't think ahead about the possible police charges and court hearings they might need to attend when they feel agitated in a certain environment and have to use their body language to show their emotion. I'd actually go so far to say that the fact that it's a nip is a testament to the tiger/handler relationship, and the fact that the tiger didn't freak out and decide to "maul a bitch" but instead decided to nip and back off to show its feelings (as a wild animal at the top of the food chain which naturally doesn't care if it seriously hurts or kills another animal) is actually pretty damned amazing. Also, hate to be crass Aussienetman, but if you have a problem with your children seeing pretty basic predator/human interaction like a punch in the head, then either educate them about the difference or don't take them there. I'm so anti nanny-nation, and i'm hopeful we don't have to have a warning sticker outside areas like this so that parents from the likes of Beenleigh or Logan (i.e. bogans) don't sue because their uneducated kids decided to sucker punch their cat and then didn't expect their family pet to go apeshit. How else are you going to obtain mutual respect from such a large wild animal and be able to comfortably exist in the same space? Asking it nicely to not bite you or carry a weapon around in fear of an attack? They're the only two choices outside of what the handlers currently do, and from what I can see it's an amazing thing they do. And now everybody reading this thread knows better. Good job internets.

You don't look like a theme park to me