BATON ROUGE, La. — Governor Jeff Landry has confirmed a live tiger will be brought onto the field at Tiger Stadium on Saturday for the LSU-Alabama game. It will be the first time in almost a decade that the old– and controversial– tradition will take place.
“Our hope is that maybe we can get this tiger to roar a couple of times," Landry said. "And that’ll indicate how many touchdowns we’ll have,” Landry said in a clip on Fox News Friday.
Since the start of the season, Landry has mentioned he would like to bring back the practice of wheeling a tiger around the stadium during home games. After much speculation, he said Friday that the plan would move forward for the LSU-Bama matchup. ”This is about tradition, this is about Mike I through VI,” he said.
The tradition started in the 1930’s with Mike I, the school’s first live mascot. Mike VI began refusing to go inside the rolling cage and the school phased out the practice until his last appearance in Tiger Stadium in 2015. The current tiger, Mike VII, has never been inside the stadium.
At first, Governor Landry pushed for Mike VII to begin the tradition again. The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate reported this month that “two university vice presidents, John Walters and Courtney Phillips, met with him a month ago to say the veterinary school couldn’t allow that, according to LSU sources.”
Instead, a second tiger was brought in to take his place in the stadium. Multiple outlets have reported that it came from a tiger handler in Florida and arrived this week.
So far, LSU has stayed publicly quiet about the tradition’s return. Football Head Coach Brian Kelly was asked about it at a press conference Thursday and cryptically responded, “I am a huge Tiger fan.”
Friday, local LSU fans in New Orleans told WWL Louisiana they were excited to see the tiger. “I think it’s great for football, great for LSU, great for the fans,” said Matt Matthews.
But the decision has been controversial.
Many petitions have been circulated since Landry first announced he would like the tradition to return, some with thousands of signatures. “It is traumatic for a wild creature to be exposed to the noise, lights, and crowd of a football stadium,” reads one.
Hundreds of comments on WWL Louisiana’s article about the tiger, posted to Facebook, echo those concerns. They call the decision “cruel,” “inhumane,” and “disgraceful.”
Louisiana Surgeon General Dr. Ralph Abraham, who is also a veterinarian, released this statement Friday:
“We had numerous discussions and took every step to ensure this was safe for the tiger. I spent several hours with the tiger last night, and you could tell he was comfortable around people and enjoyed the attention. He’s in great health, well cared for by his owners, and socially acclimated. As both a veterinarian and medical doctor, I couldn’t think of a better day to literally and figuratively be a tiger.”
Kickoff is at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
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