Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry defended his controversial decision to bring a live tiger back on LSU’s sidelines for the first time since 2016, and jabbed the Tigers for their poor performance in a 42-13 loss on Saturday that essentially eliminated LSU from College Football Playoff contention.
“Our tiger, our live tiger, unfortunately, disappointingly, was the only tiger who showed up Saturday. I’m sorry,” Landry said at an event Monday night in Metairie, La., outside of New Orleans.
After Mike VI died in 2016, LSU announced the end of the tradition of having a tiger on the sidelines during games. He often sat in a cage outside the visitor locker room, so opposing teams would have to walk past him onto the field. Sometimes, Mike would refuse to leave his on-campus enclosure so he attended just 33 of 58 games from 2007-15.
The tradition of a tiger named Mike living on LSU’s campus persisted for almost a century since Mike’s debut in 1936.
The practice had also come under fire from animal rights organizations.
LSU declined to make Mike available to resume the tradition of being on the sidelines, so Landry leased a tiger named Omar Bradley through Mitchel Kalmanson, a Florida man who operates an “exotic animal talent agency.” Kalmanson has been a frequent target of criticism from PETA and twice (2003 and 2004), tigers under his care escaped. During one of those escapes, the tiger attacked an elephant.
“It’s shameful and out of touch with today’s respect for wild species that LSU has bowed to Gov. Landry’s campaign to display a live tiger at its football games to amuse the fans,” PETA said in a statement. “LSU rightly ended this idiotic, archaic practice nearly a decade ago after recognizing that it was cruel to subject a sensitive big cat to the noise, lights and crowds in a football stadium.”
Before Saturday’s game, Omar was wheeled out in an LSU-branded cage pulled by a truck and put under a spotlight as the stadium lights were turned off. He stayed on the field for around seven minutes before leaving via the tunnel and didn’t return to the field once play began.
Introduced as the return of Mike The Tiger. Mostly cheers. Some boos. pic.twitter.com/I3uxvhtVmB
— David Ubben (@davidubben) November 10, 2024
NOLA.com reported Monday that Landry’s office said no state money or money from LSU paid “for any aspect of the tiger.”
“I had more people come up to me, and they remembered Mike the Tiger more than some of the great plays in Tiger Stadium,” Landry told the crowd Monday night. “And they grew up as children seeing this. It’s about tradition. At the end of the day, these woke people have tried to take tradition out of this country. It’s tradition that built this country.”
Landry said whether or not the tiger would return to the sidelines would be “up to the people of Louisiana.”
“The last thing I’ll say about this is that since there are some folks who think maybe because the tiger was there, LSU lost,” Landry said. “If the tiger has any fault, you can’t blame him unless he can stay for the whole game. You threw him out after 10 minutes.”
(Photo: Stephen Lew / USA Today)
