These tiger cubs are just days old, their eyes not yet completely working, but they have already been permanently removed from their mothers.
These cubs will be bottle-fed by hand for the next three months and bottle treats will be used repeatedly as young adults — part of the Limbic Imprinting protocol used by Siegfried & Roy and many other large animal trainers.
Limbic Imprinting is the third type of imprinting — the one beyond the Filial Imprinting described by Konrad Lorenz, or the Sexual Imprinting that determines what or who animals see as potential mates.
Limbic Imprinting effects the still-forming chemistry of the amygdala in the neo-natal brain of mammals, and it impacts emotion and the body's fight-or-flight response.
One reason adult wild animals are so anxious around humans is that their Limbic system is wired to trigger fight-or-flight.
One reason wild animal trainers are so focused on getting their future charges as neonatal dependents, preferably only a few days old, is that successful Limbic Imprinting at this very early age seems to permanently rewire the fight-or-flight response.
In the case of Siegfried & Roy and their big cats, everything was all fine until it wasn’t.
Wild animals can be reliably tamed if taken at a very early age and “love bombed” with treats and training, but some instincts are baked in, which means they will always present regardless of training (see “The Misbehavior of Organisms” by Keller and Marian Breland, 1961).
Mostly these instinctive behaviors are marking, vocalization, foraging, or bedding behaviors, but prey drive (especially chasing) is certainly one, and all animals have the ability to get angry, defensive, or irritated.
In the case of Siegfried & Roy, it’s not clear what happened, but the end result was Roy Horn was mauled by the neck and his spine broken, resulting in an end to the highest paid act on Las Vegas’s Sunset Strip.
Or, to quote Chris Rock about the limits and realities of wild animal training, “That tiger went tiger!”
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