Tiger Cubs Are Not Stuffed Toys

It’s been another eventful week for the PETA Foundation’s Captive Animal Law Enforcement (CALE) Division. Here are just a couple of cases that the division tackled:

• Telling visitors that this is “what [a] pissed off [baby tiger] looks like,” Tim Stark, owner of a Charlestown, Indiana, roadside zoo—aptly called Wildlife in Need—was caught on video hitting an agitated tiger cub after the struggling animal tried to bite him, grabbing the cub by the nape of the neck in an apparent attempt to anger the tiger, and then dropping the cub into an audience member’s lap. CALE has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to investigate the roadside zoo and hold Stark accountable for abusing animals and endangering the public. Stark recently admitted to a USDA inspector that visitors have been scratched and bitten, but he dismissed the incidents, saying that “a little blood is nothing.”
• Zebras and ostriches are powerful and dangerous wild animals who want nothing to do with people, yet the New Orleans Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots recently held an event—without obtaining the required permit—in which the apparently confused and terrified animals were forced to race around the track with human “jockeys” on their backs. CALE asked the USDA and local law enforcement to investigate this cruel and dangerous spectacle, which apparently violated numerous laws.