With one final breath she lifted out of the cancer ridden body that had once been Trucha the tigress. She had literally been bred to death. In the wild she would have had cubs once every three or four years as she spent the time in between raising her family and teaching them all about what it means to be a tiger. In captivity tigers are bred two to four times a year because there is a huge demand for cute, cuddly cubs.
Breeders, like the notorious Robert Baudy of Savage Kingdom, who used Trucha until he lost his USDA licence, will purposely inbreed their cats to try and produce the white coat color that accompanies the genetic defect. The cubs can only be used for petting sessions, photo ops and other pay-to-play schemes for a month or two before they are too big to handle. Many die from the rough handling, being dropped, and being starved and having diarrhea induced to keep them small. Meanwhile their mothers are already pregnant with the next litter of cubs to be exploited.
Trucha had just taken her last breath, but I felt like the weight on my chest was such that I would never again be able to breathe. I suspect that those who stood with me, Dr. Wynn, Scott, Cathy and Chris were all experiencing some similar form of grief as we eased Trucha out of her captive existence to whatever lays in store for her next. No matter what that is, it has to be better than the lousy hand she was dealt this time around.
Imagine being born in some tiny, filthy jail cell and then ripped from your mother at the age of only two weeks. The only one who would ever care about you, your mother, calls your name, moaning for the return of her cubs, but you are put into a metal cage in the breeder’s house. He is a slovenly sort and uses the lure of playing with baby tiger cubs to get young girls into his home. They will do just about anything to be the one who gets to feed you that bottle of cold, putrid liquid that bears no resemblance to the warm milk of your mother.
The young girls are often outcasts who do not have strong family or social ties and are subject to the bad influences so prevalent in big cat owners. They are often drunk or high on drugs when they come to care for you. They have no real training and your needs go untended due to neglect and ignorance. As soon as your eyes are opened you are subjected to hours upon hours of flashing light bulbs as you are handed from one laughing, giggling person to the next. You scream for your mother. You scream for it to stop, but no one hears your cries. Those who would rescue you have no legal recourse to liberate you from your tormentors. Those in charge of insuring your welfare are never there for you.
You have grown too big in just 3 or 4 months to be used this way. Your mother has already produced another litter of cubs, who are being pulled from her to start the process over. Your eyes have been so badly damaged that you only see shadows. You jump at everything and your world darkens in around you. Maybe it is better that you can’t see what is going to happen to you next.
You are relegated to some small, concrete and steel cell where you will be fed rotting flesh of whatever is cheapest; road kill, sick cows; the meat that cannot be sold. Your water bowl will be green with algae or swimming with mosquito larvae if it has water at all. The temperatures at both extremes will challenge your will to live because all you may have is a leaky box for shelter. You will be thrust in with other inmates, including your own litter mates, in the hopes that you will breed young. Your ragged ears and many scars are the visible result of having to battle for every day of your existence. The inner stress is far more debilitating. Your incestuous breeding is exactly what the breeder wants because that will get him more white cubs and the white cubs fetch more money.
You become the tiger version of a puppy mill. Your days of boredom, neglect and abuse turn into months and then years. Somewhere, far, far away tigers like you are roaming hundreds of miles. They are choosing their own mates, raising their own young and they are the most respected individuals in the forest. You have never known a single day of freedom, but you are hard wired to expect it. Every day is just one more reminder that you are a prisoner.
Most of the estimated 5000 tigers in the US will live and die in these same miserable conditions. You were one of the lucky ones. When Savage Kingdom was shut down the zoos, circus acts and backyard breeders only wanted the white tigers. They left you and three other golden tigers behind to die. The government agencies that regulate the trade in tigers either didn’t know, or didn’t care that you were slowly starving to death. By the time Big Cat Rescue learned of your plight, Bella the tigress was almost dead. The rest of you weren’t far behind. You had just about given up hope.
After 14 years of being bred to death, you found a true sanctuary; one that doesn’t breed and doesn’t allow “accidental” breeding either, which is the way that pseudo sanctuaries explain how they have cute little money-making cubs every year. In your last two years you had the best of everything that money could buy, but money couldn’t buy back your health. The cancer was inoperable and had spread throughout your entire mammary system. The one thing Big Cat Rescue couldn’t give you was your freedom, but they did give you the freedom to make many of your own decisions.
When you decided that you didn’t like living with Modnic any more, after 14 years of being forced to, you got your own private space, your own mountain cave den and your own ball and pool. As long as you were letting your rescuers know that you had a healthy appetite for life you were given supportive care, but when the disease had begun to erode the little joys you found in eating, playing, swimming and chuffing, you knew they would be there for you to ease the transition.
Today, when you closed your eyes for the last time, it was in the respectful presence of just a handful of the many people who had come to know and love you. Your tragic life was an inspiration to thousands of people who came to know you over the Internet. All that you endured was finally brought out into the light and while there was no justice for you, it was still a huge stride for your kind. On the very day that you died, a major supermarket chain pulled their sponsorship of a fair that was using a live tiger act, a sign that our society in evolving.
Your suffering was not in vain. You could shut your eyes and say your job here on earth was done.
Savage Kingdom Rescue: TJ, Bella, Modnic and Trucha
A hundred times or more a year Big Cat Rescue is contacted by someone trying to unload a tiger, lion, bobcat, serval or some other exotic cat who has outlived his usefulness. In most cases the people calling are those who have used the animals to support themselves, or to make themselves more popular, and now the cat no longer serves their needs. Then the cat has to go.
Big Cat Rescue can only take in a limited number of big cats each year because each cat is a 10-20 year commitment. Most of the cases do not meet Big Cat Rescue’s criteria for accepting a cat as they will not assist these irresponsible owners in continuing to breed and use animals by being a dumping ground for last year’s babies.
This case at Savage Kingdom was different. Robert Baudy was world renown for producing what are commonly referred to as "throw away tigers" because they are so often lame and cross eyed from the inbreeding that goes into producing the white tigers that will fetch a big price.
When USDA finally shut down the 84 year olds’ breeding activities in August of 2006 an era of abuse came much closer to an end. A friend of Baudy’s had managed to place all but four tigers by May 14, 2007. If she could not find a home for these last four tigers she was going to have them euthanized on May 18th because she could no longer afford the time and resources needed to care for the cats.
TJ, Bella, Modnic, and Trucha were the last four cats that needed a home and Big Cat Rescue stepped in to provide one. On May 18th, 2007, Rescuers transported the four to their new home at BCR. They now have spacious grassy enclosures with shrubs and trees, large mountain dens, and pools to cool off in.
TRUCHA Female Siberian/Bengal Tiger Hybrid
Most of the estimated 5000 tigers in the US will live and die in these same miserable conditions. You were one of the lucky ones. When Savage Kingdom was shut down the zoos, circus acts and backyard breeders only wanted the white tigers. They left you and three other golden tigers behind to die. The government agencies that regulate the trade in tigers either didn’t know, or didn’t care that you were slowly starving to death. By the time Big Cat Rescue learned of your plight, Bella the tigress was almost dead. The rest of you weren’t far behind. You had just about given up hope. 
Big Cat Rescue can only take in a limited number of big cats each year because each cat is a 10-20 year commitment. Most of the cases do not meet Big Cat Rescue’s criteria for accepting a cat as they will not assist these irresponsible owners in continuing to breed and use animals by being a dumping ground for last year’s babies. 
