Protester: Tigers in mall, a ‘roadside zoo’
Posted: 10/22/2011
COLERAIN TWP., Ohio - He doesn't call his foundation a reserve or a sanctuary—he considers those words “scams” in America—a way to get money from people. He also thinks that a law banning exotic animals is “stupid.”
Joe Schreibvogel, the owner of G.W. Exotic Animal Foundation , the company displaying tigers at the Northgate Mall, said he is licensed as an exhibitor by the federal government. He does think that a law should be put in place—but not to exclude his type of ownership, but rather to ensure that any owners of exotic animals are licensed like him. He said, if “you’re not licensed then no one is governing you.”
Schreibvogel said that he considers his more than 46 acres in Oklahoma, a zoo. That’s where he said he breeds large cats for other organizations and zoos nationally and worldwide, including Thailand, Korea, New Mexico, Florida, Kansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois to name a few, as well as, some in Las Vegas, where they are used for magic shows.
But protesters outside Northgate Mall said that his traveling tigers are a ‘roadside zoo’... and abuse to the tigers.
People honk their horns on the corner of Colerain Avenue just outside Northgate Mall, in support of the protesters holding signs.
"Little tiny cubs don't have a voice—you know they're at the whim of whatever the people keeping them in cages want to do. So if they want to cart them all over the country, I mean essentially, somebody needs to stand up for the cubs,” said protester Adam Johnson.
"This is not OK with us and we don't want this sort of exhibit at this mall or any mall. It's not right to have these cubs to be taken from their mother," said fellow protester Allison Cashman of Loveland.
She stood outside the mall Saturday protesting what was going on inside. She’s a volunteer at an Indiana rescue, and said that the G.W. Exotics Animal Foundation is not a rescue.
"No sanctuary would take their animals away from their facility. It puts stress on the animals to be put in a trailer or in a small confined cage for long periods of time to travel," said Cashman.
The crowd inside the mall shows interest in the tigers for a different reason. They're paying to have their photo taken with the large cats. Some... not so large.
"Just like any babies, they want to sleep all day long and they're not able to open for mall hours," said Cashman. Her fellow, younger supporters also had opinions.
"It's just cruel… They should just live in the wild with their mom," said Hayden Johnson and 7-year-old Danielle Johnson.
Spectators line up for a glimpse of the tigers as they're rolled out in large pet carriers. But Cashman said they're not pets and fears for the tigers’ future.
"The first thing that comes to mind is that these poor cubs are likely to end up in someone's back yard as a collection, as a roadside zoo.”
"Seeing Zanesville, you can't help but think that possibly that could be their fate. That they could be in someone's back yard... and hopefully something like Zanesville won't happen again, but who's to say it won't?"
So why does Schreibvogel bring his tiger cubs to malls for show?
He said he has to raise money to care for them and what better way to do that than to have a “baby tiger in your lap?” The money made by photo opps at malls is not, however, for food costs. He said the cost to feed a tiger = $0. He uses a food supply company in Texas that reuses unwanted food from grocers.
Schreibvogel said he has over 200 tigers and made $600,000 last year; with what he said is the “largest tiger facility in the world.”
Breeding “saves tigers in the wild” from being plucked from their homes, he said, and moved into captivity—if they're raised by humans, it makes it “safer for humans” to engage with the tigers, like those at the mall display.
He also said, the traveling tigers, some as young as six weeks old, are safe from harm as well.
The large cat breeder also owns 120 acres nearby his Oklahoma ‘zoo’ where he rescues horses, cows, pigs and sheep. Bring his total in “rescue” animals to 1,400.
Northgate Mall's manager has not responded to 9 News' request for comment.
What you think about protesting the mall and what the owner had to say about his 'zoo'? Head over to our Facebook page and let us know.
Check out the photo gallery from the protest at Northgate Mall.
Copyright 2011 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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