The Rescue Story

In late October 2019, a horse box loaded with ten tigers left a suspected circus HQ just outside Rome, in Italy destined for a ‘zoo’ in Dagestan in Russia.  After a gruelling 46 hour journey, an issue with the paperwork made border officials at the Polish/Belarussian border suspicious, and as a result the transporter was initially intercepted and ultimately seized. The Tigers were discovered in tiny cages where they could hardly stand up, and in appalling conditions. All of the tigers were in a desperate state, starving, dehydrated, injured, and covered in their own excrement, and one of the tigers had sadly succumbed to the treacherous conditions and was discovered dead in her cage. 

It is unclear as to what the final destination was for these tigers. The paperwork stated a ‘zoo’ in Derbent, Dagestan, Russia. What seemed unthinkable is what zoo would want that many tigers and those that were clearly in such a terrible state? It was then subsequently discovered that this zoo, had closed down in 2017. We are therefore left wondering what the likely fate of these animals would have been? Were they destined to become part of the illegal trafficking of animals and their body parts, destined for countries beyond Russia where such commodities can be traded for large profits?