MPI clears Paradise Valley Springs after handler restrains lion cubs by tail

MPI has recovered nary carnal payment concerns astatine a large feline parkland wherever lion cubs were restrained by their tails arsenic they interacted with the public.

The Ministry for Primary Industries looked into the lion cub enactment astatine Paradise Valley Springs successful Rotorua, aft receiving a ailment astir the mode the cubs were handled.

A video showed a handler restraining a cub by its process similar a leash to halt it from interacting with a young child.

Photos besides showed the cubs being held and patted portion they slept.

The parkland has defended the handler, saying the cubs bask societal enactment and are being treated by keepers with decades of experience.

MPI investigators inspected Paradise Valley Springs connected August 24 and recovered nary carnal payment concerns, a spokesperson said.

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Paradise Valley Springs successful Rotorua is nary longer allowing lion cub interactions, owed to the cubs present being excessively old.

However, determination were nary members of the nationalist contiguous and nary nationalist handling of the cubs astatine the time, the spokesperson said.

The parkland has since stopped its lion cub interactions owed to the cubs getting excessively ample for visitors to conscionable and pat.

A veterinarian acrophobic with carnal payment said restraining the cubs by the process was inappropriate.

Dr Helen Beattie, managing manager of Veterinarians for Animal Welfare Aotearoa and erstwhile main veterinary serviceman astatine the NZ Veterinary Association, is disappointed but not amazed by the deficiency of enactment by MPI, contempt the photos and video evidence.

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Paradise Valley Springs' lion cubs are being touched portion they slumber arsenic portion of the regular encounters, a signifier which is amerciable and unethical according to Veterinarians for Animal Welfare Aotearoa.

The information the lion cub interactions are nary longer taking spot does not halt MPI from prosecuting if it wanted to, she said.

Beattie antecedently compared the lion cub enactment with the same attraction of Paora the kiwi astatine Miami Zoo, which caused outrage successful New Zealand.

She said lion cubs should not beryllium handled successful this mode simply for people’s amusement and was acrophobic the parkland is not portion of an planetary breeding programme for endangered species.

But Paradise Valley Springs manager Jo Sanders antecedently said lion cubs are robust and sociable animals and could not beryllium compared with a shy, nocturnal kiwi.

The lion handlers astatine the parkland person much than 100 years hands-on acquisition betwixt them, she said.

Sanders was not amazed the parkland was cleared by MPI, which does regular inspections.