The Cruelty of Keeping Exotic Animals in Captivity

To me it's all about body language and all about sort of, and this is why I'm so into horses and dog training and stuff like that and horse body language. Did you try to save some bears while you were out here? I did. Texas, I fucking love Texas. Can I read text for Whitney about bears? I love you. She's saving bears out here. She's mad at people. I'm like, whoa, I'm having fights already? I fucking love Texas. But when you have Texas in West Virginia, you're right to fight anyone at any time. And there are a lot, there's an incredible amount of animal cruelty in Texas that to me is against what Texas is all about. Putting bears in boxes, what was it called? The Central, it was called the Capitol Texas Zoo. It's right fucking out here. There's bears in cages, the ones that the Chinese use to do the gallbladders, take them, like the gallbladder, some medicine. And they're in these cages and there's no water. What, you mean black bears? Is that what you're saying? I'll show you. It must be a black bear. Yes, I got the name. I know that gallbladder thing is like, it's so bad that they, you're not allowed to, even if you legally hunt a bear, you can't open up its organ cavity because people are worried that people are shooting bears just for their gallbladders in British Columbia. That's right. The Asiatic black bear. And this bullshit capital of Texas Zoo, which is trying to say it's like rescuing them, is all about the Asiatic black bear as a species whose population is rapidly decreasing due to illegal hunting for its gallbladder, which is used in Asian folk medicine. And then you're gonna fucking put it in a box and not give it any water. That pisses me off and it's a USDA violation. So I go around to these like bullshits. Seeing, can I- Are you calling these people out publicly right now on this podcast? I guess I just did, didn't I? These motherfuckers, here's what, you wanna know why I'm- This is a real problem for them. You understand that, right? You just like opened hell's door. It's a real problem for me because these motherfuckers have guns at all times. And it is a really dangerous thing to, for me to be in two member, I did it with the giraffe and those fucking crooks in LA. And most of it I do privately. Yeah, Malibu fucking safari. So this, they get out here. How did you find out about this? I found out about it because I'm in a pretty hardcore group of people that try to- Animal rescue people. They try to shut down illegal behaviors, zoos, roadside zoos, because, and I know it's like, Whitney's crazy. She loves animals. Like, who gives a shit? To me, once I started learning the statistics on, whenever there's exotic animal trafficking, it's usually accompanied by human trafficking. It's all the same people. So when you see a lion running free in Houston or private ownership of lions, tigers, bears, any apex predator, there's usually teenagers from another country in the same truck. So it's like dog fighting. It's like people are like, oh, it's just dog fighting, who cares? That's what's in the front yard. But if you see that in the front yard, go into the fucking basement and see what else is fucking going on. So that's what, that's what the top three most profitable black market businesses, right? It's arms, drugs, and then human slash animal trafficking. So it's the same people. No one traffics jaguars and doesn't throw in a couple people. You know what's weird? Pause and think about this for a second. It's weird how we have associations with animals where there's acceptable torture and death. And some where it's not. And with exotic animals, we're especially sensitive. Especially sensitive to the idea of killing bears or putting bears in cages. But if you found out the chickens are in a cage right next door, you're like, well, that's a chicken factory. They're making McNuggets. They gotta do what they gotta do. And they're delicious, put some honey on that shit. But you know what I'm saying? And I think I know, I think I- What is that? I can say what, I, my, cause when you see an apex predator, a lion, tiger, or bear, that's so incredibly strong, you know how much abuse had to go into containing that animal? Cause they're so incredibly strong. You know, Michael Jackson, I mean, the fucking asshole in LA, Bob Dunn, I'm gonna say it, who puts chimpanzees in cages so that they don't build any muscle. If you're seeing a chimpanzee, a lion, tiger, or bear in a cage, they were, they had to, they gotta be on fentanyl there on all these drugs. Natasha Daly wrote a really amazing- They're on fentanyl? Oh yeah, the ones in Thailand? Did they put chimps on fentanyl? Oh, they put them in cages like this so that they don't grow any muscle. And any chimp, like Michael Jackson's chimps, there were three of each because- So they all have the same name? When they, well, there's chubs. Yes, there was like a chubs one, a chubs two, and then a bubbles one and two, cause after a year, you can't hold a chimp in a tuxedo. It's gonna rip your face off. Right, just beat your ass. So after about a year, they send it off to experiments. There's one actually in a zoo in Armadilla, Texas, one of the chubs. I know where all Michael Jackson's fucking animals are. Like that's, that's my fucking hunting. What? Yes, yeah. You know where all of Michael Jackson's animals are? I mean, a lot of them are sold for experiments. Oh, Jesus, no. The elephants are kind of spread out. Yeah, one of them died. They were sold for experiments? The chimps were, cause- Like lipstick? What kind of experiments? I mean, chimp experiments, space out of CC global. Yeah. Space out of CC global. But yeah, I mean, it's a big, a lot of colleges and universities, the ones that are fucking waiting around for their student loans and imprisoning people financially, do a lot of experiments on college campuses. So I don't do a lot of this publicly cause I'll get murdered. Can you imagine you go from living in the fucking castle, living in the Michael Jackson Neverland castle to getting experiments done on you and you don't understand English and you're like, what is happening? Like I thought I had the life. I had the fucking life. Now I'm strapped in and they're experimenting on me. I went from being fucked by Michael Jackson to being probed, you know, in Texas. What the fuck? It was, but chimps, you know, I mean, they get so fucking strong. They have to keep them in cages so their muscles don't build. They don't feed them any protein and then they inject them with, you know, I mean, there's one university, which I'm not gonna say right now cause I'm like getting all my fucking ducks in a row, but they put Botox in their muscles so they don't develop any muscles. Did I ever tell you about the time I went to a tiger place in Thailand? Brutal. Did I tell you about this? No. I did, we did a bunch of animal things, me and my family in Thailand. We did one of them that was really cool. We hung around with elephants and you fed them and I had it on my Instagram page. You give them sugar cane and you wash them and then. As long as you're not riding them. No, you do ride them. But they want you to ride them. They let you. You weigh as much as one of those stupid hats with cigarettes in it. Totally. That's what you weigh to an elephant. But I didn't like it. Yeah, what they have to do to get them that compliant is pretty brutal, you know? Not in this place. In this place, first of all, these animals are completely wide open and they're free ranging. Sheldrick Trust does a great job too. If they raise them from being babies. They do that, but they also take animals from circuses and reintroduce them to the wild because while you're walking with these elephants, they just grab a tree and start eating it. They can do whatever the fuck they want. And they're so not intimidated by you in any way. And the relationship that the trainers had with the elephants was love. It was all petting. Positive reinforcement. Sugar cane. They gave them food and they were always washing them. And when you have this, they did it very smartly. Because a lot of these elephants, if you reintroduce them to the wild, they'll die right away. And all the elephants will actually kill them. But this place in Thailand, they have successfully reintroduced many to the wild. And one of the things that they did is, you don't just ride the elephant. You have a relationship with it. Yes, that's it. So they bring you over, like, this is the elephant that you're gonna have a relationship with and you're gonna feed him sugar cane and wash him. That makes me so happy. So I'm handing them sugar cane. They take it gently with their trunks. They're sweet, sweet animals. Well that's amazing. Do you remember the name of this place? Because I always love to promote the good places. I do not remember, but we stayed in Chiang Mai and it was an hour maybe outside of that. Not that far away, but the way they did it was, it was all about what you paid for for that experience would go towards funds to help these animals and reintroduce them to the wild and also get them from circuses and rescue them from some other places. I didn't like the riding part. I was like, but everybody else wanted to do it. But my thought was like, I just want, I feed you and I wash you. I wanna be your friend. I don't need to get on top and be like, we, I'm riding you. That's a language elephants understand. And I think that the really shitty places, which is most of them, give the good ones a bad name, which sucks, I went to one. I went to Kosa Mui and I don't remember in Thailand where I went to one and there's, you go there and everyone's riding them and then you look down and there's just chains between their feet and I just, it killed me, it crushed me because I thought I was going to this amazing sanctuary because anyone can put sanctuary in the front of their fucking thing. But I think I've heard you talk so much about captivity of dolphins and it's just when you see that, and when you're like, this is just intolerable. Like these animals are not designed to be in, it's prison. You're watching this incredible thing be in prison and you know that this motherfucker, the second it gets out could kill everyone within a 15 mile radius. The fact that they're in this cage, what had to happen in order to confine them that way? I mean, what happened for someone to put you in a cage? They'd have to fucking shoot you with darts. So it's so heartbreaking to see powerful animals be reduced to a fucking zoo exhibition. A shelf trinket. It's sick. And look, a lot of animal people are fucking crazy as shit and as we say, animal people aren't always people people because a lot of people that are real big in animal rescue have a lot of childhood trauma. They were neglected, they were abused as kids and they see something voiceless and that can't send emails or make phone calls being abused and they go fucking nuts. So I don't fuck with a lot of animal rescue people because they're not rational. My thing is like, let's fucking go and change a law instead of trying to get every fucking elephant out of every zoo. But I think that someone like you, I think we're similar in that we see how fucked up it is to have an apex predator in a box. Yeah, we went to the elephant thing and the elephant thing was, it actually felt good because these elephants, they came over the top of the hill. They just showed up out of nowhere. There's no fences. They came over the top of the hill and they come when they know that they're gonna bring out the sugar cane and they're gonna meet these people. And they're choosing to do it. And the way they meet you, they just walk right up to you. I'm telling you, it's wild. Like they just, they bump into you, like they bring their face to you and you pet them. You go, hello, nice to meet you. Yeah, they like being pet. Are they the smartest animal after chimpanzee? I believe. Well, they can paint. They might be smarter than chimps. You know, like they can paint things. They can't solve complex puzzles like chimps do. Chimps can spell things. Chimps can do a lot of stuff but they remember their loved ones, their family members for like decades and decades. It kills me. They've reintroduced ones after like, you know, more than 10 years apart and they recognize each other instantly and they run and hug and they're rubbing trunks and everything. It's wild. They're dinosaurs. Well, there's something interesting. They're the closest we have to fucking dinosaurs and you look at them and you're, you know, there's this place, Pazark that- I don't think they've been around that long. Interesting. I mean, but they feel like the way they move, like it is like Jurassic Park. They're special. There's something special. It's Snuffleupagus. I mean, it's also like, you know. The fact that something exists like that, that's so goddamn big and yet it'll like, if you're nice to it- Gentle. Like, here's the thing. It's like you really can't keep a fucking tiger as a pet in an open area but you can in Thailand with these elephants. Like the relationship they have with people is very different. Like that thing just walks up to you. You can pet it. There's not a fucking chance in hell you could do that with a tiger. There's not a chance in hell you would let one of your friends or your children get on a tiger. You know what I mean? And if they do, anyone touching any apex predator, that's abuse. They have to take the cub from the mom right away. They have to dart the mom with the tranquilizer tick because when everyone's like, I'm holding a bear cub, I'm holding a tiger cub. It's like, you think that the mom just fucking willingly gave that shit up? No, and then it's not getting any of the breast milk. So they have all these autoimmune issues and their spines don't develop properly. So the place that I work with in Alpine, it's all these bears that have been in cub petting as adults and they can't really walk well. They're all fucked up. Once you see the aftermath of what happens with any kind of tiger bear, I mean they have about six months and they just send them off to either get killed or to get a can hunting or whatever that stuff is where they just put it. They hunt tigers? They put a tiger or a lion that's never been in the wild. That's only been held by humans. They definitely do that with lions in Africa. In these canned hunting facilities and the lion sees a person is like, hey, what's up? And then someone shoots it. Exactly. That's not hunting. That's fucking fishing a barrel. Not only that, the lion doesn't go very far from where they release it because it doesn't have a territory. So it doesn't know where to go. But it sees a human and it's like, oh, I'm about to get a Big Mac from this human. I don't think they think that way. Or sorry, they go, that's a Big Mac. I think immediately if they see a person, they want to kill it. But the point is it's not really hunting. It's not like you're going into the wild animals. They literally let it go a day or two before the hunt. But you've seen Tippyhedron and these things where they bottle raise them so they're not gonna attack someone that bottle raised them. I don't think they do that on those farms. Have you ever seen Louis Theroux? His documentary. I love him. I love him too. I've had him on a couple times. I love his, yeah. He's been on twice. The Scientology one? No, he's been on a couple times. I love him. But he had a great special that he did about going to these hunting camps in Africa where they raise these animals specifically to be released and hunted. And he stayed there for a long time. Like he's so thorough. He got in with this guy and got very close with this guy that was running this and he got him irritated to the point where the guy was like, Africa, he's fucked. And this guy was talking about why he did it. And he's like, it's fucked. And he's like, these animals are fucked. And he was basically explaining the only way these animals have any value is if they're worth money to kill. That's why there's high populations of them, which is really wild because they used to be on the verge of extinction, a lot of them. And they've regrown their numbers substantially just because there's businesses that are designed so that people can, that's the guy, so people can go over there and hunt these animals. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips easily, seamlessly switch between video and audio experience. On Spotify, you can listen to the JRE in the background while using other apps and can download episodes to save on data costs for free. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app. Go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan Experience.