Document the Atrocities

This has been an exceedingly strange and difficult offseason for the LSU football team. There have certainly been some bright spots since the Sugar Bowl, most notably the 4 Tigers drafted in the first round of the NFL draft and the signing of a class that many believe may be the best ever at LSU. But other than that, we have dealt with a series of unfortunate or otherwise difficult circumstances.

• The hiring of former LSU coach Nick Saban by one of our biggest rivals, and the subsequent media storm. Technically, the hiring was announced on the day of the Sugar Bowl, so it wasn't strictly an offseason story, but much of the aftermath occurred in the offseason.
  
• While we signed a great recruiting class, the story was soured by the Joe McKnight and Luther Davis situations. To recap, Luther Davis committed to LSU, and then secretly took a visit to the University of Alabama and constructed an elaborate web of lies in an attempt to cover it up. Depending on who you believe, we either pulled his scholarship offer or he decided to de-commit and go to Bama. Joe McKnight, arguably the top prospect in the entire country and a Louisiana kid, decided to go to USC rather than LSU, and there was a big stink.
• Ryan Perrilloux's counterfeiting saga, wherein he was investigated by the Feds for suspected involvement in a counterfeiting ring. He has not been charged and it is believed he may have been cleared of wrongdoing.
• Kyle Anderson allegedly attacked a man outside of a bar, putting him in the hospital. Anderson, a backup OL, was kicked off the team permanently.
• Zhamal Thomas and Troy Giddens, backup OL and DB respectively, allegedly broke into an apartment, stole some stuff, and tried to use a stolen credit card. They were kicked off the team permanently.
• Ryan Perilloux allegedly tried to enter a casino underage using someone else's ID. Because of this and other transgressions, he was suspended from the team indefinitely, and his fate is not decided.
• LSU's live tiger mascot, Mike V, dies unexpectedly following surgery.
• Former LSU defensive end and a key member of the 2003 national championship team Marquise Hill died in a recreational accident on Lake Pontchartrain. Reports are that he died saving another person from drowning.

You could say that we're waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it already has. Several times. And we're not done yet. Next week, the Major League Baseball draft takes place, and we will find out more about whether we will likely lose star recruit Chad Jones, one of the jewels of this great recruiting class. He has said he will go play baseball if the money is right.

Let's hope all this is just prologue to a great season.

Exploitation

Exploit: to use selfishly for one's own ends

This is a post about the ethics of keeping a captive tiger. I have thought a lot about this topic over the last several years. I've gone back and forth on what I believe about the ethics of having a live tiger mascot. I may change my mind again in the future.

My current opinion on this subject is this: we are ethically in the clear for keeping a live tiger mascot, because we do not harm the tiger and the tiger seems to get significant benefits from the deal.

Be clear. I do not believe that it is always OK to keep live animal mascots. I think it depends on the animal and it depends on how you treat the animal. In our case, we keep a tiger. If we kept a buffalo, wolf, vulture, or Cornhusker as a mascot, the ethical considerations would be different.

I believe we're doing something OK for several reasons.

• Tigers are generally solitary creatures in the wild, so it's not such a bad thing to keep a single tiger.
• We do no deliberate harm to the tiger, other than put it through the stress of performing before a large audience 7 or 8 times per year.
• The tiger benefits by getting world class veterinary care, to the point that I understand captive tigers live much longer than is typical in the wild.
• Tigers in the wild are endangered, subject to significant poaching, and victims of loss of habitat.
• Like a wild tiger, our tigers get the occasional opportunity to interact with other tigers, as LSU regularly breeds our tigers.
  

I realize there are down sides. For one thing, our tigers don't have the opportunity to roam the way a wild tiger will. There is also that whole man-in-tiger-suit-runs-up-and-taunts-him-several-times-per-year. While I suppose that isn't necessarily a really big deal, I don't think there's any argument in the world we're doing it for the benefit of the tiger. Hence, the title and opening segment of this thread. We exploit the tigers, though I agree that it is not in a particularly serious way, and the tiger is adequately compensated for it.

Ultimately, I think the bigger issue is the tiger's inability to roam like a wild tiger. However, I do not believe this is at all similar to caging a human being. I don't think tigers look for "personal fulfillment". I think tigers struggle to survive, and if they found an easy way to survive in the wild, would be quite "fulfilled" by it. Our system provides the tiger with that.

Keep in mind that some of these factors are very specific to a tiger. Personally, I think Colorado's buffalo is much more ethically troubling than a tiger. The buffalo is a herd animal, most comfortable in groups that is dozens large. To hold one is really inadequate. I'd think the same of a wolf or an elephant (which I don't think anyone has).

For what it's worth, I think this is a completely different issue from using animals in medical or product testing, which can be less troubling or more troubling, depending on the testing.

I understand PETA's position here. I just think they're wrong.