A few years ago I went to a big cat sanctuary in California that breeds all varieties of big cats (for zoos and wildlife sanctuaries) and works to keep the bloodlines healthy. And they had a lot to say on the topic of 'mutts'. Basically cats in circuses and private collections, etc are not carefully bred and are often crossed with other breeds (at least in the case of tigers -- I'm not sure if that applies to lions, I don't know if there are different subspecies of lions). Basically their position on the whole thing was that cats being bred and kept by people unconcerned about breeding lines and genetics are not helping to keep the species healthy (and the cats shouldn't be kept in those circumstances anyway). So maybe that's the position the officials are taking about the sterilization.
It's just a guess -- the article wasn't particularly thorough as far as details go.
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A few years ago I went to a big cat sanctuary in California that breeds all varieties of big cats (for zoos and wildlife sanctuaries) and works to keep the bloodlines healthy. And they had a lot to say on the topic of 'mutts'. Basically cats in circuses and private collections, etc are not carefully bred and are often crossed with other breeds (at least in the case of tigers -- I'm not sure if that applies to lions, I don't know if there are different subspecies of lions). Basically their position on the whole thing was that cats being bred and kept by people unconcerned about breeding lines and genetics are not helping to keep the species healthy (and the cats shouldn't be kept in those circumstances anyway). So maybe that's the position the officials are taking about the sterilization.
It's just a guess -- the article wasn't particularly thorough as far as details go.