Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation

This roadside zoo regularly acquires big-cat and bear cubs from notorious breeders and forces them into photo ops, yet it has the audacity to call itself a “sanctuary.” The facility’s operator, Roberta Kirshner, has been seen hitting the baby animals used in these encounters, including a lion cub named Samson, who was hit with a broom while he had broken bones.  Read more at https://www.peta.org/action/action-alerts/barry-r-kirshner-wildlife-foundation/

It has received endangered snow leopards from Tanganyika Wildlife Park.  How can this possibly serve conservation?

Do NOT support captive breeding of tigers. It’s NOT conservation.

According to this July 2023 Facebook post, it appears that the Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation is breeding tigers in contravention of CITES Decision 14.69.  At the meeting (CoP14, The Hague, 2007), the Conference of the Parties adopted Decision 14.69 as follows: “Parties with intensive operations breeding tigers on a commercial scale shall implement measures to restrict the captive population to a level supportive only to conserving wild tigers; tigers should not be bred for trade in their parts and derivatives.”

In addition to the fact that legitimate sanctuaries do not breed wild cats, there is no way this birth is helping to conserve tigers in the wild, as no U.S. captive born tiger could ever be set free.