re: LSU traditions, and why our governor doesn’t give a sh’t about them.

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“Does the Tiger look unhappy? Did he tell you he was sad? He's an animal. As long as he has food, that's what animals spend their entire lives doing, is hunting for food.”

Not hard to infer you were suggesting that your simplistic view of animals is limited to a belief that they only care about food.

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Is it too simplistic to believe that you should be advocating for us to give up the tradition as a whole because the baseline idea here is that Tigers and other wild animals are emotionally scarred and sad when they are in captivity? The guy was just asking how do you know how the animal feels? It seems to me that the consensus with animal rights folks and now with a lot of everyday americans, is that you know that the animals are sad when in captivity and are better "emotionally" off in the wild.

You people also need to make up your mind.

ETA: Mike5 lived a long 17 years as a captive Tiger, surpassing the average lifespan of wild Tigers , and was brought out in front of millions of people over that time.Just a little fact to add to all the learnin going on here. I wonder if they used to give him anti depressants?

He’s a ULL frick

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Thank you for admitting it will do short term damage. And since the threshold for continuing to operate as a sanctuary is "no damage", admitting that bringing him over invalidates our license forever.

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Let me ammend my original statement. Even if the tiger is distressed (arguable) for a short amount of time, I don't think it will cause any damage. Long or short term. The tiger will be 100% fine.

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Also, please present your doctorate accreditations from Veterinary School.

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I don't have doctorate accreditations from a veterinary school but I would love to see yours. Is it shiny? I bet it is!

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But would you bring your dogs TO the fireworks? Would you take them out of their comfort zone, where they live and sleep, and bring them to the thing that causes them stress?

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You do realize most people do fireworks at their own house where their pet lives right?

Damn, this whole thread from the OP and the responses is a total mess.

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I'm asking you a serious question that I know you can't answer, because animals don't have feelings.

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Honestly, you must be retarded.

This has turned out to be a fun way to spend the morning.

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Because the old research doesn't demonstrate to any degree of certainty what they claim it does, any more than climate "research" which "97% of all scientists agree on" has demonstrated to be reliable, despite all of the revered academia of which you so highly esteem has touted as evidence over the years.

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There is evidence supporting the notion that animals experience feeling and emotion. This is an indisputable fact. You can argue the degree to which they experience it, you can agree the complexity of it, you can even argue that we don't as humans know with "any degree of certainty" that what we've labeled as emotion A is what the animal is actually experiencing. But there is evidence supporting the notion that animals experience feeling and emotion.

You continue to post as if this isn't true. You keep moving the goalposts. Now you need it to be "absolutely certain"

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And who are "they"? Well you gave me the links to read. Was it not clear to you that I was responding to them? Why do I bring up the climate "scientists", you may wonder? Well, because like all of mainstream academia, there is a clear agenda: Gaslight the public by whatever means necessary in order to achieve a desired outcome. Scare people into thinking they're destroying the planet, and they'll get you to change your way of life, and look to them as your guiding light. Convince people that the world is billions of years old (without evidence), and make you question your world view. And as it pertains to the subject we're discussing today, try to eliminate as many distinctions between humans and animals as possible, and further cement the idea that we are all just animals; the product of millions of years of evolution, rather than human beings who were created in the image of God.

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Uh oh, we've stumbled into some sketchy territory. Are we now going to start measuring the age of the earth not in billions of years but thousands?

What exactly are you inferring, that scientists have engineered this notion that animals display feelings and emotions so that we won't be mean to them? I eat cows, chickens, fish, pigs, and plenty of other animals and I have very little regard to their feelings. Seriously, though - get some help. Are you suggesting that evolution hasn't happened and isn't happening?

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Do you know if they tried when he was young? Is it not a known fact that animals develop behavior through repetition? Had LSU not already decided to discontinue the tradition of bringing a tiger into the stadium by 2015? Lots of animals show a resistance to cages. Until they get used to it. How is that emotion? Isn't it an instinct to resist what isn't familiar?

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They tried with the prior Mike and they just let him choose and didn't force him. LSU's head vet for the Tiger essentially said that they've learned that the cumulative effects of this sort of activity are negative. It's beyond a "resistance to cages."

You seem hell bent on proving that animals only act based on instinct. I guess that's a fair position to come from, I just don't agree with it at all. Many don't, in fact. I just think it's important to note that instinct is the base of emotion.

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Remorse? So you fussed at your dog and it gave you a look, which you concluded was remorse? Or did it learn through repeated behavior on your part that there were consequences coming whenever it heard you raise your voice? You think that I think animals are stupid. Interestingly, I never actually said or even inferred that. I believe that God gave creatures very complex instincts that allow them to pick up on things. It's how they survive. It's a remarkable thing. But to say that they internalize things on an emotional level, I find to be unrealistic.

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Yes, I've fussed at my dog and it looks at me with sad eyes. But here's a more relevant example - before I've found that my dog has done something wrong, I can tell that he's done something wrong. It's not a response to yelling, it's a response to knowing that it did something wrong.

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LSU did this for years, without issue. Only when the likes of PETA (I don't care how much of a boogeyman you think they are, the fact of the matter is that it IS the extreme like them who even made this an issue) came after LSU, did they cave to the pressure. It's time to call these people on their bluff. How is LSU putting this tiger in danger? What business should it be of any group of activists to decide for everyone else what they can and cannot do? Furthermore, this will not be a tiger from LSU, and thus the vet school cannot be held liable for anything that happens. They can sue the athletic department, and sue the governor, but this is not about the vet school.

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I don't think PETA is a bogeyman. I think it's a fallacy to blame them for everything. LSU's own veterinarian doesn't think it makes sense to bring the tiger onto the field. Whether that's because of political pressure or simply a more informed opinion about how to take care of the big cat, I wouldn't know. You seem to think that the only way someone would come to that opinion is because they are being gaslit by politically motivated scientists and radical activists.

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Would it be possible for me to believe that, if there were anything to support that? Sure. But they did this for decades, without incident, until the plug was pulled. And if the decision was now out of their hands as caretakers, why should I conclude that they are the one's deciding not to bring the tiger into the stadium? Now that the tiger is 8 years old, and is set in his ways, it's a little late to train him for that environment. That's why Jeff Landry has called in for another tiger. Now, you can disagree with that decision, but it's not going to affect the vet school.

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In your mind, it's not possible for thinking about the best ways to care for animals to have evolved? Just because they did this for decades doesn't mean that it should be continued. There are plenty of examples in human history where this line of thinking is used, and using nostalgia (and quite frankly, ignorance) to justify past behavior often ignores the fact that old ways of doing things were often uninformed. While you probably don't agree with this, people live longer today due to medical advances that were discovered because the way we'd done things for decades was either ineffective or not comprehensive.

As to why Jeff Landry has called in for another tiger, I really hope you aren't thinking that Jeff Landry, who has zero experience or education in the field of large animal veterinary practices is so knowledgeable about the situation that he decided to bring a tiger into the stadium simply because the one we have is too old to be trained to come into the stadium. It's more likely that he called in for another tiger because he has supporters like yourselves that are easily entertained. It's political theater and it's clear who his puppets are.

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Is it too simplistic to believe that you should be advocating for us to give up the tradition as a whole because the baseline idea here is that Tigers and other wild animals are emotionally scarred and sad when they are in captivity? The guy was just asking how do you know how the animal feels? It seems to me that the consensus with animal rights folks and now with a lot of everyday americans, is that you know that the animals are sad when in captivity and are better "emotionally" off in the wild.

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This wasn't an argument about the relative happiness of animals in captivity vs the wild.

The argument was whether an animal in captivity should be subjected to known stressors that could be harmful to them.

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ETA: Mike5 lived a long 17 years as a captive Tiger, surpassing the average lifespan of wild Tigers , and was brought out in front of millions of people over that time.Just a little fact to add to all the learnin going on here. I wonder if they used to give him anti depressants?

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They used to put cocaine in coca-cola, they used to lace aspirin with heroin, and they used to perform lobotomies to heal mental illnesses. Knowledge evolves over time. It's okay to think something today that is different from what we thought before.

WHO CARES? WHO cares if the Mascot is on the field, off the field, in Africa, in a Zoo, etc, etc? Worry about the GAME. The TEAM. Many schools have their animal mascots on the field. I’m sure some don’t. It doesn’t matter. Let’s BEAT BAMA!!