The Laporte’s County Fair posted a show ad on Facebook  of a tiger experience coming to the Laporte County Fair.  They quickly began to receive backlash from the community that doesn’t want something like this in our community in the comments.  They began by blocking individuals who protested.  Then moved forward to disabling comments entirely.  This morning the post is gone.  However the event is still posted on the fair grounds website.  It is believed this was done to limit the amount of backlash and so that the “show can still go on”.  The show shouldn’t go on.  As a citizen of Laporte I do not support this kind of show and I will not support it coming to our county fair.  Please, if you agree, stand with me in telling Laporte County Fair to end its support of animal entertainment and that it’s not welcome in our community.  I will provide phone numbers and emails that you can use to have your voice heard directly by them since they want to silence us on social media. 

Here is why this is problematic: 

While some captive animal venues claim to prioritize conservation efforts, their main focus remains on exploiting animals for entertainment and financial gain.  They justifying breeding baby animals to be confined in cramped enclosure and they will never be reintroduced into the wild. 

There are 3,900 wild tigers left in the world.  Let that number truly sink in for a second. They live in their natural habitat.  In the US there are more than 5,000 tigers in privates ownership.  They will never be reintroduced to their natural habitat.  They are then used in shows for entertainment and for financial gain of the owner.  Many of these owners fell under attack after the release of “Tiger King”.   Nothing has changed for many of the tigers being held captive even after their owners fell under such scrutiny.  The only thing that has changed is that owners now claim they are conservationists by adding a small educational factor into a show.  They do this to avoid the scrutiny and to appear as if they are complying to the demands from society to do better.  I assure they are not.  A true conservationist would never force an animal into a cage while they cart them around to shows.  That’s not conservation that is entertainment. 

These animals are trained to exhibit unnecessary behaviors on command for financial gain of their owners.  They are held in small enclosures for months at a time while traveling and they sometimes travel year round.  This specific entertainer states that he travels up to 10 months of the year but only keeps specific tigers with him for a month before swapping them out.  Being forced to live in a small container and forced to perform unnatural and unnecessary behaviors for the sole profit of the owner is abuse and it’s disgusting. 

All of these shows are similar in the way that there are no conservation effort truly being done, there is little to no education of the visitors happening and it is being done solely for a profit for the owner. It really comes down to money.  People want wild experiences and they are will to pay large amounts of money to do it, but at what cost to the animal? 

#EndAnimalEntertainment

#NotInMyTown

Contact them directly and get your voice heard:

LaPorte County Fair

2581 W. State Rd. 2
LaPorte, IN 46350
office: (219) 362-2647
fax: (219) 362-2517
email: laportefair@gmail.com