Put a Tiger In Your... Campus?

The LSU Tigers' New Tiger Makes His Debut

Well, at least someone is having some good news out of Louisiana lately.  Louisiana State University has announced a new tiger is one campus.  Yes, the mascot of LSU is the tiger, so technically with the start of the new school year, they've welcomed thousands of new "tigers" onto the campus.  One of them, however, actually has stripes.

For several generations, the university has been home to a living, breathing, tiger.  Traditionally, the animal attended games, a practice which has since discontinued.  Now, the tiger - the seventh in the University's history, each named "Mike" - lives in a 15,000 square foot habitat attached to the football stadium.  By all accounts that I've heard, it's a pretty nice habitat, compete with logs, a stream, and a waterfall, as well as an attached indoor enclosure.

So... a tiger... on a university campus... as in, one full of university students.  Good idea, or bad?

Despite my initial balking, I've actually come around on the idea of the LSU tiger.  It's worth noting that they didn't buy the animal (and haven't for generations) - instead, he was an animal in need of a home, adopted from a sanctuary.  The habitat and care seem perfectly adequate, and being the university's only animal, receives their undivided attention.

Mike, the LSU Tigers mascot, is an 11-month old Siberian-Bengal mix.  Courtesy of Eddy Perez, LSU

I do hope that they have an excellent security system around him, though.  I remember my college days pretty vividly, and shudder to think of what some of my classmates could've gotten themselves into.

What really surprised me reading this article was PETA's - if not endorsement - at least tacit approval of the tiger situation.  They've encouraged LSU to have itself accredited as a sanctuary, which it seems interested in doing.  The main obligations are that they don't breed (appropriately, both for conservation purposes - Mike VII is a hybrid between two subspecies of tiger - and due to the over-abundance of abandoned/confiscated tigers in this country) and that there be no buying and selling.  Both positions the university agrees to.

Now, the thing is, most universities - not all, but I'm willing to bet a sizeable majority - have animal mascots.  I doubt that this would be a trend elsewhere... but it is a thought.  Imagine a zoo's worth of animals scattered across the campuses of America...

It makes me wish, at least, that my university had had a cooler mascot... but only if I could have been its keeper