PETA oughta show Mike more respect

Published 8:33 am Friday, May 27, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Yo, PETA! Take a chill pill. Snort some parsley. Chow down on a bacon cheeseburger.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But could you at least wait until the corpse is cold before the picket lines go up?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">By now, surely you’ve heard the sad news that Mike VI, LSU’s regal Bengal tiger mascot, has been diagnosed with a rare cancerous tumor in the side of his face.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The prognosis is not good. Maybe a few months for an ordinary tiger.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But, of course, this is no ordinary tiger. Mike VI gets the kind of care and attention hard to come by in the jungle.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So Mike VI will get experimental treatment at a clinic that normally deals with humans. It might prolong Mike VI’s life for a couple years. Might not. But at least the effort’s there.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That’s not good enough for PETA — The People for Ethical Treatment of Animals.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You know PETA.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They’re the ones who cheer for the shark when watching “Jaws.” They urge compassion for water moccasins.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Seemingly they have a whole squadron that does nothing but sit around waiting for LSU live mascots to pass on.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mike VI is still alive, still taking visitors at his palatial estate across the street from Tiger Stadium.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There are flowers all about the place.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Some of them, along with get-well cards, have even come from normally warring factions — Tusk IV, the live mascot of the Arkansas Razorbacks sent best wishes, as did the always debonair UGA X, Georgia’s magnificent bulldog.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Did it make PETA’s heart go pitter-patter to see the wild kingdom put aside petty differences and band together in this time of crisis?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">No. Of course not.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">PETA wasted no time using the opportunity to demand — once again — that LSU quit torturing an animal with a $3 million, custom-built habitat that includes air-conditioning, a pool, a waterfall, and three squares a day, all with an entire veterinary school at his beck and call.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">PETA wants Mike VI to be LSU’s last live mascot.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s basically the same demand made when Mike V died nine years ago.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Hopefully LSU’s answer will be the same.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That response was dressed up in civility, but in a rare and refreshing break from academic political correctness basically told PETA to go hug a rattlesnake and mind its own business.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">PETA claims that it doesn’t matter how pampered LSU’s mascots are.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Or, as LSU’s previous letter pointed out, that tigers in captivity live far longer than in the wild. Mike V died at age 17 — Mikes I and III lived to be 18; Mike IV almost made it to legal drinking age. Tigers in the wild rarely crack double digits amidst all that pure nature with an honest food chain.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Better, PETA says, to get a couple of years in as a wild tiger than double the life expectancy with all creature comforts attended to. They do not say which focus group of tigers they surveyed about this.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it kind of misses the point.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s not like LSU is going to send an armed safari over to Myanmar (Burma) and snatch a young, innocent tiger from its family.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It will, most likely, be another tiger donated — apparently you can’t legally pay for a tiger — from an animal preserve somewhere.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">None of LSU’s tigers were ever going to see the rain forest.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mike VI is the largest and probably most beautiful in the line of Mikes.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Maybe it was because of the fancy digs LSU built for him with donations. He is unusually playful and seems particularly infatuated with young children who visited, often rambling clear across his wide expanse to jump toward them at the Plexiglass surrounding his custom pool.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Whether he sees them as potential playmates or appetizers, only he knows.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Mike sure has seemed happy enough. He only went to football games when he wanted to, which lately wasn’t very often. The only game he made last year wasn’t played when the skies opened up to cancel the McNeese game.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So it seems like a pretty good gig if you’re a tiger.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">I know there’s a tiger caged at a gas station at the foot of the Atchafalaya bridge that would crawl to Baton Rouge for an audition.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Surely word will get out in the tiger fraternity that LSU may soon be looking again.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But at least, LSU has the decency to hold off forming a search committee while Fighting Tiger Mike VI is still fighting the good fight.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">However, while PETA is on campus, maybe someone could ask the organization to clarify its stand on Rally ’Possums.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mainly, is it permissible (or demeaning) to drop the “o” from the more formal opossum as has been customary during LSU’s current Rally ’Possum mania?</span>

<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">—</span>

<p class="p1">Follow Scooter Hobbs on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterAmPress">https://twitter.com/ScooterAmPress</a>

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