Research overview: welfare in roadside zoos and pseudo-sanctuaries

Many big cats live in poorly regulated roadside zoos and facilities that adopt the sanctuary label without meeting its standards, raising acute welfare concerns. This overview surveys the issues distinguishing accredited institutions and genuine sanctuaries from exploitative operations: substandard enclosures, inadequate nutrition and veterinary care, continued breeding and public handling, use of animals for photo opportunities, and weak oversight. It examines how accreditation schemes, legislation restricting public contact, and investigations expose and address these problems, and the welfare gulf between marketing claims and animal conditions. It discusses the surplus animals and rescues such facilities generate. The synthesis frames the proliferation of substandard and falsely labelled facilities as a structural welfare problem, and accreditation and regulation as the main tools for protecting captive cats.