PLAQUEMINE (AP) — Tony, the tiger on display at a Grosse Tete truck stop, is getting a cage makeover.
The Iberville Parish Council voted late Tuesday to require a larger pool for the 550-pound, Siberian-Bengal tiger, rubber sleeping mats for its cage and heaters for the winter.
Parish President J. Mitchell Ourso Jr. insisted on those and other improvements as a condition for allowing Tiger Truck Stop owner Michael Sandlin to keep the animal.
The council had voted 11-1 at its February meeting in favor of an ordinance allowing Sandlin to continue displaying the tiger. But Ourso vetoed it because it imposed no conditions on the animal’s care.
Sandlin has displayed tigers for years at his truck stop, despite complaints by animal welfare advocates that the environment is unsuitable and unhealthy for the animals.—-Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]