New Movie “Secret Life Of Pets 2” Includes A White Tiger
June 19, 2019
Animated movies are a fantastic way for children to connect real life morals and values in the form of cartoon characters. We all remember the most influential movies of our childhood, and the way watching them made us feel in that moment, 25 years into the future. For animal lovers, The Lion King was extremely impactful, and still is today. With the growing industry of childhood animation and storylines, it is important to not forget what messages those movies are sending the future of the natural world, our children.
The Secret Life of Pets 2 is a sequel, where the heroes in the film fight together to rescue a white tiger from an abusive life in a circus. The film is full of action, with the main character Max anxiously doing everything he can as a dog to protect his human baby, and his furry friends try to rescue Hu, the white tiger, from an abusive circus master. The moral of the story is that children can embrace the challenges of life, and overcome personal fears.
However, the ending winds up with Hu, the white tiger, living in a household as a pet. Although rescuing exotic animals from the circus industry is a wonderful way to teach children the negative aspects of animal entertainment, it encourages keeping wild animals as pets. As the exotic pet trade continues to wreak havoc on captive wildlife, we must use these opportunities to speak out to our children on why tigers should never be kept as a pet. Just as the real-life stories we see of tigers being kept in apartments in New York, or abandoned in a home in Texas.
Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge relentlessly fights to advocate and create awareness on why tigers, lions, bears, and other exotic wildlife should never be kept as a pet. For 27 years, TCWR has been rescuing abused, neglected, and abandoned big cats from those who cannot provide them with the proper care. There are over 7,000 tigers kept as pets in the United States, when there are only 3,800 left in the wild.
Together we can stop the exotic pet trade by working together and teaching our children that tigers and other endangered species should be kept in the wild. Captive exotic animals should be in the care of professionals, should never be held or pet, and live their lives at facilities like Turpentine Creek, where they can live a life of freedom at a true sanctuary.
We encourage our supporters to use this opportunity to speak to the younger generation on how they can help, and to spread the message that predators are not meant to be pets. By having an open-ended conversation with the youth in your life, you can facilitate wildlife warriors for the future. Discuss why having a predator as a pet is never a good idea, and if that were a real-life tiger, what kind of care does it deserve? We can use these opportunities to teach our children that not everything in life (or a cartoon) is what we should believe is right.
Turpentine Creek is not discouraging our supporters from watching this movie, only encouraging them to use this movie as an opportunity to have a discussion with their children and other people.