Navy Pier’s tiger show is no more
‘Royal White Tigers’ ends early after information on show’s owner comes to light
Comments (...)(MCT) — Navy Pier abruptly closed its popular “royal white tigers” — featuring Gita and her cubs — after I showed up Tuesday asking about an interesting fact:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is revoking the white tiger owner’s exhibition license for health and safety violations, including allegedly posing a danger to children.
The tiger show began Jan. 13 and was to run through Feb. 12. Navy Pier officials said they paid $27,000 to the company and had sold $16,500 in tickets so far.
According to court documents, the USDA found that Marcus Cook’s company ZooCats Inc. “willfully violated” the Animal Welfare Act. The USDA has been hunting Cook for years now, alleging a long history of infractions.
“There is evidence that ZooCats trainers did not handle the animals properly, at times, using physical abuse with a cattle prod to train, work or control an animal during an exhibition,” USDA spokesman Dave Sacks told us.
“They failed to provide a proper diet, treat animal illness and injury, and did not keep proper facilities. … The USDA has revoked ZooCats’ animal exhibition license,” Sacks said.
Officials also said the trainers let spectators at previous exhibitions get too close to the tigers — though not at Navy Pier.
All Navy Pier had to do was put Cook’s name into Google. But apparently no one did, and now nobody wants to own up to the white tiger idea. I figured it was some Chicago political appointee who missed Las Vegas and the old Siegfried and Roy tiger shows that came to a rather abrupt end in 2003, particularly for Roy.
Cook denied the USDA’s claims. He blamed USDA bureaucrats, particularly a higher-up, Sarah L. Conant. Cook claimed she’s an animal rights activist with a political agenda aimed at eliminating all traveling zoos, exhibitors and other such entertainments from the American landscape.
USDA officials would not make Conant available for comment, but added that the agency has no political agenda but merely follows the law.
“You’ve got some bureaucrats who want us gone,” Cook told me. “They’re activists with agendas working for the USDA. We treat the animals well. We don’t use cattle prods. We don’t put children in danger. But these animal rights types don’t want exhibitors around. You watch. Soon they’ll tell you that you shouldn’t have a dog because it’s unkind to ‘own’ one.”
My own opinion? Actually, I like the tigers. I like zoos, and I like smaller exhibitions like this one. But then, I’ve always been drawn to such things. I won’t abide cruelty. But like many of you, I’m fascinated by critters.
The impulse to protect beautiful wild things like tigers is important, but traveling zoos and exhibitions aren’t the reason tiger populations have dwindled to almost nothing in the wild. The loss of habitat is a reason. And killing tigers for their body parts — to satisfy the barbaric demands of alternative Asian medicine — is what marks them collectively for death.
At Navy Pier, you could see the tigers up close. The exhibit area was clean and didn’t smell, and the tigers seemed healthy and well-fed. I spent hours there watching them, like the boy I once was, the one who wanted to go to Ontario Veterinary College or become a naturalist.
They were white like the color of old parchment, an off-white, with a slight yellow tinge, and the dark stripes were the color of melted chocolate. They were big and quiet and they had beautiful square heads. What I didn’t want to think about was critics saying that they’re mutants, inbred to maintain that aberrant white coloring.
We were at a distance from the tigers, behind a perimeter fence about 8 or more feet from the enclosure, and there was no way to reach them.
I’m still trying to figure out who’s really at fault here, if anyone. And I feel bad about the tigers leaving and the kids who won’t get a chance to see them.
“They’re cool,” said Bradley Tarjan, 8, of the Northwest Side. He was there with his aunts.
“They’re white. And they’re cool. And they’re so big,” Bradley said. “They’re so cool.”
And now they’re so gone.
“Based on the information we received today, effective immediately we are ending the exhibit and our contractual relationship with Mr. Cook’s company,” said Nick Shields, a spokesman for Navy Pier.
Have there been unscrupulous critter shows and circus cruelty in the past? Of course. But is Cook’s show one of them? I can’t tell. The USDA makes a compelling case, and the anecdotal evidence on top of all that is troubling.
But what worries me is that the crackdown on the white tigers may be used to condemn all zoos and exhibitions as inherently cruel, in part because they hold animals captive for our interest and enjoyment.
I think saving such beautiful predators is more complicated than a slogan.
If humans don’t attach themselves emotionally to the big cats, they will disappear. Their bones will be ground into powder and sold. Their habitat will be plowed and planted.
Already, the white tigers are gone from Navy Pier.
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