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Some notoriously cruel roadside zoos, dealers, and breeders market themselves as sanctuaries in order to attract customers. One such sham sanctuary is the Endangered Animal Rescue Sanctuary (EARS) in Citra, Florida, which plans to exploit a tiger named Maximus in its biannual Hot Cars & Cool Cats Car Show, despite the facility’s history of dangerous big-cat escapes.
In 2020, a white tiger named Kimba was shot and killed after escaping from an enclosure at EARS. During a state inspection the year prior, a lion named Venus escaped and attacked a dog before being tranquilized and returned to her enclosure. The following morning, Venus was found dead. That same year, tigers Rajah and Rauri escaped after a tree limb snapped and fell on their enclosure. When they were found loose on the property and allegedly attempted to attack the facility’s owner, they were both shot and killed.
In nature, big cats have home ranges of hundreds of miles, in which they climb, swim, and raise their young. Carting these animals around to public events to be gawked at by strangers is a form of speciesism—a human-supremacist worldview. It compromises their welfare and puts the public at risk.
Please join PETA in calling on EARS not to transport any live animals to public events.