A caged tiger rolled into LSU’s Tiger Stadium for the first time since 2015 at the governor’s behest

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – A caged Bengal tiger was rolled onto the Tiger Stadium field for the first time in nearly a decade before kickoff of Saturday night’s game between No. 14 LSU and No. 11 Alabama, fulfilling the wish of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.

The tiger wasn’t the one who lives on campus, Mike VII.

Following the death of the school’s previous Tiger, Mike VI, in 2016, LSU announced that the future Mike the Tigers would no longer be brought onto the field.

According to the school’s website, Mike VI, who died of a rare form of cancer, attended 33 of 58 homes between 2007 and 2015.

While the university’s current mascot, Mike VII — an 8-year-old, 345-pound tiger donated to the school from a sanctuary in 2017 — is not brought onto the field for games, visitors can still see the tiger in his 15,000-pound see tigers. square foot site located on campus adjacent to the stadium.

To get around this problem, Landry had a tiger imported from Florida for the game – much to the chagrin of animal rights activists protesting outside the stadium.

As the tiger was dragged onto the field with a black curtain over the cage, a short video detailing the history of LSU’s living mascot played on giant scoreboards.

The stadium lights dimmed and a spotlight was shined on the cage as the curtain was raised, revealing the tiger inside as many fans cheered.

At first the tiger was lying down and soon began to walk up and down in circles.

Minutes later, the cage was rolled off the field as part of pre-game celebrations.

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