CSM EDITORIAL

The great rescue and relocation swindle: how wildlife charities steal animals and exploit them for cash

Are wildlife charities lying to donors and exploiting the animals they claim to be saving? That seems to be the gist of an article on Fieldsports Channel, which has catalogued lies told by animal activists, rescue centres and the media to try to justify confiscating lions and tigers then shipping them to zoos that don’t hide their delight at the thought of the crowds they’ll draw.

At the heart of the article is Natuurhulpcentrum, a rescue centre in Belgium that got its hands on two lions and two tigers illegally confiscated from a circus in Germany. Following a tip by extremist animal rights group PETA, authorities took the animals from Circus Las Vegas to save them from abuse. The two lions – Maggie and Sonja – end up at the Born Free Foundation’s (BFF) zoo at an expensive resort in South Africa that charges people hundreds of pounds a night.

As is explained in detail, there are two problems with this: firstly, the animals have never been to Africa, so the notion they are being returned to their ‘ancestral home’ is nonsense. Secondly and more importantly, the animals were never abused.

“This may all seem great but is it part of a massive scam involving a network of animal rights extremists, rescue centres and so-called sanctuaries?” the Fieldsports Channel article asks. “Among their goals are self-promotion and millions of pounds swindled from people moved by media stories of their love of animals, an image reinforced by high-profile and expensive ‘rescues’.”

The article points out that animals BFF send to Africa are just being moved from one zoo to another, only it’s hotter. It then breaks down each step of the way from a German court clearing the circus of any wrongdoing and dismissing PETA’s claims as a deliberate attempt to get the animals confiscated. Then the authorities denying the circus its right to appeal while the animals were speedily sold to Natuurhulpcentrum Wildlife Rescue Centre (NWRC) in Belgium for about €100 each.

The Fieldsports Channel article states:

“German journalist Heike Hiltrop, who has followed the case from the start and was there when the big cats were handed to NWRC in May 2013… told us, ‘only one with a docked tail and a wound there – which the vet said was treated, but it [took] a long time to heal… There was no talk of animal cruelty, on the contrary, experts were of the opinion that it was not justified to confiscate the animals. I was at the trial myself.'”

It didn’t matter that the German circus was cleared by a court of doing anything illegal or that the animals were almost perfectly healthy. The lies spread by PETA continued over the years as the big cats languished at NWRC then were sent to BFF, Woodside Wildlife Park in Lincolnshire and the Isle of Wight zoo.

When quizzed, NWRC denied all knowledge of the cats:

“‘I said everything on the phone what we know and don’t know about this case,’ NWRC biologist Frederik Thoelen told Fieldsports News. His excuse was he’d only worked there about three years. Surely NWRC has records of animal acquisitions? We advised him to ask the centre’s director Sil Janssen. He was interviewed for an article published days after the raid and knew all about the transfer.”

Sil Janssen was photographed by a circus trailer with one of the confiscated tigers in it. He mentioned abuse at the hands of cruel circus owners. When the big cats were sent to the UK, the  media latched onto the claims. None of it was true, other than the tigers used to be circus acts.

Woodside continued repeating the made-up stories: “Rescued from a European circus by concerned authorities, Woodside stepped in at the 11th hour and successfully managed to give these magnificent animals a safe, secure and long-term home,” the zoo’s website insisted. Fieldsports Channel points out that “only Tango that was threatened with death by NWRC to make room for younger, sexier tigers”. “The pair of male and female tigers were both very badly treated in captivity by their previous owners,” Woodside’s website goes on then asks for people to donate hundreds of thousands of pounds to pay for the animals.

Surely if they can’t afford to keep them, they should never have got them? However, their sad background of circus abuse would surely tug at people’s purse strings. The park’s director Neil Mumby didn’t try to hide that fact, telling the Express: “We did it for two other reasons – to raise the profile of the park and, of course, to attract more visitors. They are the only tigers on view in a park in Lincolnshire and we hope many people will come to see them.” So much for the 11th hour rescue, with Mumby admitting they were told about the tigers six months before they got them.

The Fieldsports Britain article continues the journey of Maggie and Sonja: “When they arrived in the UK – a needless stop since they were on their way to Africa – the media fell in line with NWRC and BFF’s spurious narrative. ‘Safe at last: lionesses touch down in Britain after rescue from horrific German circus,’ says the Daily Mirror headline under a photo of pop singer Peter Andre posing with Maggie… ‘Maggie and Sonja… were finally saved when desperate animal charity workers swooped on the cruel Circus Las Vegas show in Hamburg…’ it goes on, referring to PETA as the ‘desperate charity workers’. ‘Squalor: Their living conditions were so bad Maggie faced almost certain death and had to have part of her tail amputated,’ under a photo of Maggie in the same travel cage in the Peter Andre picture.”

The paper quotes the singer:

“Lots of generous and kind-hearted Brits have helped to make this happen by donating money.”

“Will the ‘kind-hearted Brits’ be so kind when they realise they were duped into paying for a PR stunt?” the article asks. “We asked NWRC why it didn’t correct organisations like Woodside or BFF when they lied to the press into thinking animals were saved from cruelty when they weren’t? No answer.”

Fieldsports Channel also asked Andrea Donaldson, BFF’s acting head of rescue and care, why it claimed the cats had been mistreated. She insisted BFF has evidence following an “investigation by PETA, where they filmed and documented several areas of concern” – the same evidence no doubt that was dismissed by the German court.

If the claims are true and BFF is in cahoots with animal rights groups, it wouldn’t be the first time.  In 2012, Born Free USA was named in a $9.3 million racketeering lawsuit brought on by Ringling Bros circus against the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, “claiming the groups and their lawyers paid more than $190,000 to a former Ringling employee who had joined them in suing the circus company in 2000, alleging animal cruelty under the Endangered Species Act”, according to The Palm Beach Post.

We encourage you to head over to our friends at Fieldsports Channel to read the shocking story yourselves. The article there is written and researched by Ben O’Rourke. Ben was Assistant International Editor at the South China Morning Post until 2019 then became a journalist and filmmaker for Fieldsports Channel.

Spread Ben’s article far and wide. It merits traction and this year maybe the Wildlife Charities will be forced to end their lying and to stop duping the public with their various scams.