How long can you keep a tiger cub as a pet? I have read of people doing so, but surely, for very obvious reasons, there is a time limit to how long you can keep a carnivore in your living room?
鈥� You can keep a tiger cub as a pet until it grows up and gets hungry or loses patience with you.
鈥淵ou can keep a tiger cub as a pet until it grows up and gets hungry or loses patience with you鈥�
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Doug Grigg, Cannonvale, Queensland, Australia
鈥� If there is an upper age limit then one is assuming that tigers are suitable for a domestic environment below that age. The flaw with this is that they would need their mother at this stage and, if one has qualms about keeping an adult tiger, then one would not even contemplate a maternal tigress.
As for the implication that there is a stage in a juvenile tiger鈥檚 physical development which would mark a watershed in pet/owner relations, then it is a case of 鈥渢ake your pick鈥�. Cubs become fully mobile at about eight weeks, when they are still endowed with cuteness, but you wouldn鈥檛 want one to bite or scratch you. At 18 months, young tigers become independent in terms of being capable of fending for themselves. Fending for themselves in this context generally means hunting. That does not mean they have left home, however. In the wild, cubs stay with mothers for up to two and a half years, and removing one may have emotional repercussions for an animal that is already a dangerous predator.
Even if you and your family avoid featuring on the tiger鈥檚 menu, there are the minor social, and, probably, legal difficulties arising out of the disappearance of your neighbours鈥� pets. Tigers do not only kill to eat; they will also, in the wild, suppress local populations of any rival carnivores in their territory. These include wolves 鈥� and next-door鈥檚 labrador. And, if it鈥檚 a male tiger, there鈥檚 the particularly noxious spray-marking of personal space to consider 鈥� tiger pee makes fox urine smell like Chanel No. 5.
Clearly it is not impossible to keep a tiger as a pet. According to the most recent statistics from the , some 12,000 are kept as pets in the US alone, ironically more than the world population of wild tigers, and largely as consequence of overbreeding by zoos in the 1980s and 1990s. How many are kept as domestic pets in the accepted sense, rather than wildlife parks or private enclosures, isn鈥檛 known.
However, in a sad commentary on US animal welfare legislation, a large number of these big cats must be living in people鈥檚 homes, as if they were large dogs. For instance, the to Animals estimates there are 500 lions and tigers in metropolitan Houston alone. While 19 states have banned private ownership of big cats, only 15 of the others require an owner鈥檚 licence, and 16 have no relevant legislation at all, despite the US鈥檚 indigenous population of cougars being on the endangered species list.
These animals are all adults, so strictly speaking there is no upper age limit for keeping a tiger as a pet because it has grown too large, or its behaviour makes it unsuitable. The correct answer to the question is, of course, that no tiger of any age should live socially alongside people. Their proper place is in the wild.
Hadrian Jeffs, Norwich, UK