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Gleb Garanich / Reuters
Zoo owner and artist Aleksandr Pylyshenko lies next to female African lion Katya inside a cage at a private zoo situated in his yard in the city of Vasilyevka, southeastern Ukraine August 3. Pylyshenko decided to spend five weeks in a cage with a pair of African lions, Katya and Samson, to get money for improving the lions' living conditions, according to local media. He is broadcasting it on internet to attract the public's attention to plight of wild animals in private Ukrainian zoos, which do not get enough funding.
Gleb Garanich / Reuters
Zoo owner and artist Aleksandr Pylyshenko paints a picture inside a cage with female African lion Katya, at a private zoo situated in his yard.
Sergei Supinsky / AFP - Getty Images
A kitten sits in front of Alexander Pylyshenko and African lioness Katya in his private zoo.
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All zoos are an abomination!
That lion should be on the range somewhere, not in a cage for entertainment! Disgusting!
True, but I gotta give this guy credit; I'd love to do what he's doing, but definitely wouldn't take the chance.
We'll see how friendly the lion becomes when giving birth to her cubs.
How about don't have any zoos at all and don't buy any lions. That way, you won't have to worry about poor conditions due to lack of funding.
The only zoos I respect are wildlife sanctuaries for animals that were abused then rescued and can't be put back in the wild. Every other zoo is just an animal prison. They'll all give some B.S. reason about why it's important to have zoos for education. It's all a lot of nonsense. You want education, watch nature channels on TV, visit Yellowstone and other parks, and go to the library and check out some of the thousands of books on animals.
I agree with you.
There can never be an easy answer to whether or not we as human beings should dominate everything on the planet. Yes we created the chaos that is all around us, but when we finally admit that, we can help to undo some of our wrongs and try to diminish what we cannot fix. Some zoos are necessary to try and link the animal to the human. If you never saw in real life an elephant and had that experience as a child, you would never be able to truly say, "Hey that elephant cannot possibley be as dangerous as those people say they are", or "That elephant I saw at the zoo did not look as happy as that one at the sanctuary and I don't think that it could voluntarily stand on its back legs and do tricks like the one at the circus." Because growing up we have that pseudo physical and emotional bond by seeing the animals we begin to think of that animal as more than just a caged beast. You begin to see as yours, begin it is your favorite childhood memory of seeing the monkeys running around the cement island or the lion lying in the fake pond. People always want to preserve and bring back their past, and it is human nature to want to out do what has already been done. In doing that we reinvent the zoos of the past to better more realistic enclosures, or sanctuaries and rehabilitation sites.
Don't condemn the ideas of the past, of having made wild animals into "pets" and easy to obtain. What we should do is regulate the buying and selling of these animals. We need to educate people of the realities of having a personal zoo and make sure that legislation is passed to make sure that the animals are taken care of. And when they aren't, make sure that there is a place for those animals to go instead of giving it a pink shot. We also need to realize that as educated animal lovers who abhore and are disgusted by the pictures of this nonsense, that we are way out numbered by the people who think that it is okay.
Do you ever think about what we are doing to the lands that these animals roamed? You wonder why the population is declining? Why so many animals are now on the endangered list?!? Because of people! Maybe zoos are not the issue but the people who invade their land, kill for trophies, or have no thoughts are to what their actions are doing to the world we live in.
Do you understand he is protecting a lion that is believed to be extinct! A very rare breed of Barbary lions! He is trying to attract attention, (which he got yours as you are reading this) to better the lives of the lions. I agree that he being present during the birthing process may be dangerous but that is what is getting the attention. And as a true lion ranger, he would be able to read kayta body language and know when he has come too close, before its too late.
I give him props! If more people were aware of what damage we our doing to our world and the animals in it, including us, maybe things can change.
As Aleksandr Pylyshenko stated:
“I have made up my mind to spend 35 days in one cage with the lions in order to demonstrate that understanding between human beings and lions is easy to attain,” the zoo owner said. “It is about time modern society understood that peaceful co-existence is what everyone needs. I want people to cease arguing with each other and jostling for power,” he explained.
I'm thinking he ought to be keeping that food bowl FULL...and not use the lioness as a pillow!
Is there a way to donate money from America?
ideally we would have plenty of healthy habitate and conditions for all wildlife that continues to loose ground daily, most zoos are in trouble and should get funding as where would these creatures go through no fault of their own but mans continual destruction of planet, war is one of the biggest killers of habitate as well as poaching, theres billions of people but the bio diversity of lions is now critical they should be required to collect dna for every big game animal killed for sport hunting etc as the gene pools of all big game are under threat but not people who breed like rats and consume like termites!