SHOULD THEY LIVE IF THEIR LIVES ARE NOT WORTH LIVING?

"(He) waited for 2 days in (the city) so that he could go to the circus, he endured those days only for the joy that he imagined he'd see when he saw real lions, he would tell me years later. But on the day when he went to the circus...his seat in the front row, first the elephant came up, when the audience clapped, my mamma noticed that (he) was gradually losing his vitality and excitement at being there at seeing an animal that he had assumed would be monumental. And it was indeed the largest animal that (he) had ever seen, but as big as it was, as (he) told me later, in truth what had a profound impact on him was that the elephant was dying, that it barely moved, that its colour was not as it was supposed to be and that it was showing more ribs than one would expect. The elephant was dying from sadness and imprisonment and the worst thing was that nobody seemed to notice. They kept making it raise one leg and then another. They made it complete one lap of the ring with a woman fooling around on its bony back and then balance on its hind legs while its trunk caught and then threw a ball to its trainer. Next up was a lion with its trainer carrying a torch and a whip which he used, to make the beast jump through hoops of fire. The tamer managed to get the lion to leap from bench to bench and roar now and then, but it was all a pretense because in the big cat's eyes, there wasn't the faintest trace of its fierceness. He lived, he moved a little, and awkwardly, he did a little of whatever the tamer requested with his whip, but he was dead inside. That was when (his) eyes welled up".

Having written the title of this blog, I went to make a cup of coffee, I was listening to an audio book called 'The Murmur of Bees' by Sofia Segovia. The above passage resonated as it fits in with what I  am about to write about.
But my main theme here is the question... Should they live if their lives are not worth living?

Luke in his captive life at LLA, he lived in a 1.5mx1.5m cage before this

1) Entirely apart from all the hundreds of animals being bred on breeding farms for consumer markets of one type or another; how many animals are out there in circuses, zoos, private menageries, the homes of the wealthy, rehabilitation centers, and sanctuaries? With sad eyes and broken spirits.

2) Where do we draw the line between acceptable captivity and therefore 'Okay to live that life', and unacceptable captive conditions, therefore 'better to put the animal down than leave it to endure'?

3) Who gets to decide? 

The difference in opinion would range as widely as those held with regard to keeping children well cared for.

• Super luxurious house and private school but no parental involvement or hands on loving care.
• Strongly bonded emotionally, living in a small apartment, single parent working double time to give the child an education and food although the child must largely fend for itself with regards to preparing food, housekeeping, homework requirements etc.
• Round the clock parenting in a clutter of arts and crafts, extra curricular activities, groups, family events with strict codes of beliefs about religion, politics and social biases.
• Poverty stricken parents living hand to mouth who adore and respect each other and their children but can only give them some basic clothes and food and seek medical attention only when absolutely unavoidable.

What conditions of environment, food, medical care, clothing, schooling, housing, mental and emotional care is considered good enough?

• What is more or less acceptable....intellectually stimulating homes that encourage challenging boundaries or parents who struggle to have a stimulating debate around the dinner table to parents who will not tolerate debate?
• In what kind of setting should children get to play....in large manicured gardens, higgledy piggledy vegetable gardens, playgrounds, forests, inner city balconies filled with ever drying laundry?

Really? Who gets to decide which exact shade of grey is good enough? Where do we draw the line?

4) Should each case be evaluated individually based on a combination of variables?

5) Is it possible to send animals who are found to be living in unacceptable conditions to places which provide better lifestyles or is that action useless as it does not benefit all the rest of the animals in unacceptable conditions? 

6) If animals can not live freely as nature intended, in their endemic environment, should they then be euthanized?

7) Is a not-so-perfect environment made up for, by excellent, loving treatment? Conversely, does a wonderfully large and natural environment make up for inferior treatment?

Although I can only write from my perspective, I can ask questions from many different angles, just don't expect me to answer these questions. Read on if you are alright with never reaching a proper conclusion.

I question the relevance of sanctuaries and the ethics behind 'rescuing' captive animals on a daily basis. In fact my entire reason for getting on with life revolves around the intricate balancing act playing in my head as I argue both sides of this debate.

I used the idea of children and acceptable conditions in which to raise them because a large part of my decision to help the few animals I can help, was founded upon an experience I had as a young adult when I helped at an orphanage. There, some of the children were orphans. Some abandoned. They should not have been living there. They should have had families caring for them, even if not the actual parents. They should have had warm houses and toy strewn gardens. They should have had sibling banter over butternut soup and granny's toasted soldiers. They should have learnt to pack up their puzzle pieces before their bedtime story was read to them in their own chosen colour paletted bedroom. Instead, these children had broken boxes with too few puzzle pieces ever to complete a perfect picture.

They were cold, sleeping in a dormitory of grey blanketed beds, lined up inside grey painted walls. They were of course luckier than the children sleeping on cardboard under the bridge outside. It was all relative, but all wrong to my young mind. What could I do? Was there a solution? Should wealthy foreigners come along and remove one or two of the dozen, replanting them in a new language and culture to possibly be seen as exotic exhibits and never indigenous. Did the government condone the endless production of children if it couldn't step in to support?
I could only do what I could do. Read them a bed time story. Paint for them,whatever picture they described to me, onto their wall.  And when my visa expired, return to my life.

When faced with lions living in inferior conditions in captivity for no rhyme or reason other than one human's desire to own lions, I asked the question, what can I do? I admitted to myself that I could only change the destiny of a hand full of lions, that was a fact. The integral question then was, could I not do this? Could I walk away and not change those few lions' lives? 

Well no, I could not do so. The choice between those lions being euthanized because they should not be alive in the first place, and me giving them the best life I could give them, was one I had to make. What else was my life going to be used for? One small person working to put food on the table, worrying about how I was going to pay school fees, finding a way to get by. Was there some other life changing task for me to do that was more important than this?  A few years later, Line joined me in this decision and so now we are two people doing what we can for a few cats.

I suppose the reality of this situation attests to our core feelings over this matter. Yet do we deliberate and debate the question.

Every day when we see the lions roaming their vastly improved landscapes, roaring, romping and rolling in the veld, we feel a sense of joy. Every day when we see the same lions in the same enclosures, only able to roam the same restricted area, we feel distraught at the wrongness of the situation. Lions should not be in captivity. This should not have happened. It should never have been necessary for us to build these cats "the most natural enclosures possible" to give them "improved lifestyles within their captive environment". People should not have had the right to breed these cats for lives in captivity in the first place.

So at which point should people decide that animals in captivity would be better off dead?

I think we should make that decision earlier on in the process. We need to stop the needless breeding of animals in captivity. But personally, 99% of the time, I believe that if we can take an animal from a life in a cage or away from a whip, bullet, chain or slaughter house; we should do so. But I do believe that taking animals away from breeders or from facilities who will replace the 'rescued' animal with a new one from a breeder, is wrong. We cannot perpetuate the trade in animals. To the breeder, a sale is a sale. No matter the use the buyer will make of the 'item' bought.

Lions should be living in the African bush. Jaguars and Pumas should be in the Americas. People should be awe struck when they come across one of these majestic cats in the wild. That is how it should be.

You tell me that Love Lions Alive Sanctuary should not exist because lions should not, under any circumstances, be kept in captivity and that our lions should rather be euthanized than allowed to live lives in captivity. You tell me that you will fight to have all captive lion facilities shut down in South Africa. All. Not just the breeding farms, tourist parks, petting zoos, private ego-maniacs. But the sanctuaries as well.

I admit to not knowing the answers to all of my deliberations as mentioned above. I admit to being constantly challenged by new concepts as I grow in my beliefs. I honour the wildlife experts and conservation gurus of SA. I look up to countless numbers of organisations and animal advocates. I know that lions in sanctuaries have nothing to do with the conservation of wild lions. But right now, where I am on my journey with these cats is here.....That Line and I will fight tooth and nail to care for every individual cat at LLA for the rest of his or her natural lifespan to the best of our ability, but that no new animals should be made to live in captivity.