Help me save Tony

Mr. Sandlin owns Tiger Truck Stop in Grosse Tete, home of a 21-year-old live tiger exhibit that finds itself threatened by recent state law, and the target of an animal rights group in Florida. This guest column is his response to last month’s Rant by animal rights activist Cathy Monroe.

A 2007 state law has put a death sentence on the live tiger exhibit at the Tiger Truck Stop in Grosse Tete. We are disappointed that the Louisiana Legislature has given in to animal rights activists and have taken away the rights of people to own exotic animals.

We understand that your next-door neighbor should not be allowed to have a tiger chained up in their backyard, but that is not the case here. We are not against regulations that protect animals and the public. However, we are against legislation that bans ownership altogether.

Tiger Truck Stop has a U.S. Department of Agriculture animal welfare exhibitor’s license, and has operated under USDA regulations since the exhibit was created in 1988. There have been five tigers performing and 13 cubs born in our free-to-the-public, 40-foot by 80-foot grass and concrete educational exhibit throughout the years. Three of our cats were retired to a sanctuary in Tennessee due to old age, having lived in the exhibit for 18 years, and some were traded to other licensed exhibitors. Two of our cubs were donated to the Zoo of Acadiana in Broussard, and one was given to an LSU veterinary student who, upon graduation, moved to Montana. That is a record of which we are very proud.

There is one tiger “Tony” currently living at the Tiger Truck Stop. Unlike LSU, Southern University, or Big Cat Rescue (the animal activist-owned sanctuary in Florida that tried to steal Tony away from us), no tiger has ever escaped, and no injuries have ever occurred at the Tiger Truck Stop. They can keep their exhibits, so why can’t we?

Tony was born in captivity, a hand-raised pet that has become accustomed to love and affection from human beings. The activists want to take Tony from his home and the people who love him.

Tens of thousands of people—including tourists, truck drivers, the old and the young, residents and non-residents alike—have found tremendous joy from watching our tigers throughout the years. We have been on the Travel Channel, in many newspapers and magazines and even in a Hollywood motion picture called Palmer’s Pick Up. The Tiger Truck Stop live tiger exhibit has been nothing but an asset to the State of Louisiana, Iberville Parish, the village of Grosse Tete and its community.

Keep the tigers in Grosse Tete by visiting savetony.com, and contact your state representatives and senators and ask them to stop this atrocity, and change this biased animal rights legislation.

Learn more at tigertruckstop.com.