Animals Are My Family

As someone who has spent almost my entire career working in zoos, my photograph collection inevitably includes large carnivores, primates, and other species I have, through the necessity of my job, hand-reared. But they were not just animals…they were family! They were sleepless nights of baby bottles, bottom washes, and nappy changes. These were labors of love for creatures who will forever be in my memories and my heart.

Don’t Post Animal Pictures on Social Media

The moment photos of you with animals appear on social media accounts, they act as advertisements. Other people see these moments and they want the experience for themselves. And they’re prepared to pay for it. Some species lend themselves to such activities but others do not. In this case, I’m talking about big cats and primates.

Zookeepers posting pictures with animals are most certainly advertising on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and other social media, indirectly promoting the barbaric and illegal animal trade.

Zoos and other animal facilities should never post animal selfies with big cats or primates. It shows ignorance and lack of care.

Such is the power of advertising. Don’t believe me? Scan your way through Facebook. Wherever you find a photo of someone (perhaps even one of you) posing with a big cat or primate, look at the comments:

• “Wow!”
• “Amazing!
• “So jealous!”
• “I want to do that!”

And do so they will… the moment the opportunity arises.

Keep Your Photos to Yourself

Some may argue that these animals had to be hand-reared, so why not take photos? Again I have no argument with the photos themselves… just with the photos being used as accidental advertisements to encourage animal photography. Keep the photos. Hang them on your walls at home, not on the wall of your social media feed.

Then there are the zoos themselves, getting so-called celebrities to pose with their tiger cubs. It is still wrong. Very wrong.

What Are You Trying These Pictures to Prove

You have to ask yourself: ‘Why?’ Why do you need to show off such photos? What are you trying to prove?

Then you have to stop and realize that these photos are causing harm. They are directly contributing to the tiger trade, to ‘canned hunting’ of lions (where the animals are kept in a confined area and easily hunted and killed), to chimpanzees, orangutans, and gibbons being killed to provide the babies as pets to the Persian Gulf states.

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