Tigers and lions exploited for life in the Loiret

In the garden and on the gates are lions’ heads. We are without a doubt at the property of a trainer. For 27 years, Rémy Demantes has been raising and training big cats, with a cane in hand, for advertisements, film clips and television shows. The lions leave their enclosures and are then transported on the roads, to be exposed to the unknown, the noise and the lights, with noisy humans all around them.

When a baby tiger is born, it is irretrievably removed from its mother, and quickly exhibited in front of groups of humans, at the circus museum directed by the trainer, for a daily show of one hour. Private tours of the farm are offered to the public by the owner, not far from there… Our investigators have reported images of these seven feline prisoners.

Seven tigers and lions locked up for life

Tanga is the oldest. She is fifteen years old and lives alone in a mesh enclosure of barely 35m², in the centre of which sits a rock and a tree trunk. Suffice to say that his prison is devoid of any enrichment.

The youngest, Mawak, born three months ago, left the trainers house for a 6 m² enclosure on garden tiles. No grass or clay for its little legs. When he finally comes out, on the end of a leash, he is refused the chance to play to play in the vines of the Virginia creepers. No, he must do his business on demand, before the show, and pose for the photo with the visitors of the day, who can also hold him on a leash or shout “no” in a big voice to frighten him. The baby tiger is raised with a lot of slaps and small, well-felt blows on the head, using a wooden stick.

At the bottom of the garden, his parents, including Radja the white tiger, (these tigers exist only in captivity, the fruits from cross breeding between sick animals) and a tigress, Jade, who was seen roughly handling her baby. The menagerie, consists of cages that can barely contain them, are damp and smell very strong, all in a permanent building. How extremely sad to see them like this!

Nearby, Judy the tigress lives with Tina, a young lioness. Nothing is natural here. Tigers live alone when they are free and in the wild and on a different continent than that of lions! Timba, the lion in the enclosure next door seems weary and hopelessly bored and idle.

A lucrative activity supported by the tourist office

For his museum and the visit of to see his livestock, Rémy Demantes has received several awards “a heart of gold” from the department’s tourist office, which supports this activity from another era. The trainer justifies this breeding and this training by draping himself behind the legality of his activities and uses the dangers of poaching of free tigers in the wild for his excuses. The existence of poaching or trophy hunting is a problem in itself to be combated, but is in no case a valid reason for reducing animals to a life of slavery, forever confined and enslaved.