Group Offers to Help Retire Cats to Sanctuary After OSHA Cites Exhibitor Following Attack on Handler
For Immediate Release:
December 29, 2011
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Las Vegas -- PETA has sent an urgent letter to MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren imploring him not to send the lions from the MGM Grand Hotel's soon-to-be-shuttered lion exhibit back to exhibitor Keith Evans' lion menagerie outside Las Vegas, where Evans plans to put them on public display. Instead, PETA is calling on Murren to ensure that the lions are retired to a reputable sanctuary, where they can live in lush, natural surroundings; be afforded privacy as they desire; and receive expert care to fulfill their physical and psychological needs. PETA—which has worked closely with several sanctuaries across the country—has offered to help coordinate the relocation.
The MGM Grand has announced that it will close its exhibit on January 31. The decision comes after Evans was cited by the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) following an attack on a trainer by a male lion at the MGM exhibit as well as a PETA complaint to the Nevada agency. Click here to see video footage of the attack.
"Not only is it cruel to confine majestic lions—rulers of their domain in the wild—to cramped enclosures where they are denied everything that's natural and important to them, it's also extremely dangerous, as MGM has learned," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "These cats deserve to live out their lives in peace at a sanctuary, where they will finally receive expert care and live in comfort."
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
PETA's letter to MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren follows.
December 29, 2011
Jim
Murren, Chair and CEO
Corey
Sanders, COO
MGM
Resorts International
3600 Las Vegas Blvd. S.
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Dear Messrs. Murren and Sanders:
We are writing to thank you for your decision to close the lion exhibit at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino and to offer our assistance in helping to relocate the lions to a reputable sanctuary.
MGM has used these lions for its financial benefit for years, and we urge the company to give back to the animals now by ensuring they can live out the rest of their lives in appropriate, ample habitats while receiving the best possible care. We understand that MGM has maintained a fund valued at more than $1 million for the care of these lions, and we encourage you to use these funds to relocate the animals to a reputable sanctuary. We stand ready to help coordinate such a transfer and to help in any other way that we are able.
According to news reports, Keith Evans, the person who owns the lions, plans to put them on exhibit in Clark County, Nevada. This plan is clearly not in the best interests of the animals. In their natural habitats, lions roam many miles of territory, hunt, raise their young, and avoid contact with people. It is detrimental to the mental and physical health of these animals to be confined to tiny, barren, artificial environments without any opportunity for privacy. Evans has also illegally declawed lion cubs—a painful mutilation. Moreover, the only safe way to handle lions is through protected contact—that is, to prohibit trainers and handlers from having any direct contact with the animals. Direct contact with lions puts both the animals and the humans at risk of serious injury and death, as evidenced by the two lion attacks at MGM Grand and affirmed by the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration when it recently cited Evans for allowing direct contact at MGM. Despite all this, Evans continues to advocate direct contact on his website, which includes a demonstration video on hand-feeding an aggressive adult lion. There is no indication that Evans will implement safer or more humane handling practices.
For all these reasons, we urge you to ensure that the lions are sent to a reputable sanctuary as soon as possible, and we stand ready to help with that effort. May I please hear from you about this important matter? I can be contacted at DelciannaW@peta.org or 202-309-4697. Thank you.
Very truly yours,
Delcianna
Winders, Esq.
Director
Captive Animal Law Enforcement