For decades, the Massillon Football Booster Club in Massillon, Ohio has used live Bengal tiger cubs as living “mascots” for the town's popular high school football team. Each year, a new cub is leased from a private breeder, stored in a garage, and forced to attend noisy football games. Then, after a single football season, the growing cub is dumped in a decrepit roadside zoo so it can be "replaced" with a new tiger cub for the next year! This tradition has led to the team buying – and discarding – 45 endangered tigers over the past 20 years.

The tigers, all nicknamed “Obie”, are bought by the booster club from Stump Hill Farms, a private exotics breeder which has repeatedly failed to comply with minimum Animal Welfare Act requirements. Stump Hill has been cited by inspectors for declawing tiger cubs illegally, keeping adult tigers in cages so small, they cannot fully stretch out, and for housing cubs in unsafe enclosures. The most recent "Obie", a tiger cub named Lilly, had to have a toe amputated after it became caught in the fencing of her cage at Stump Hill - a cage which the owner has claimed she would "never put a baby tiger in".

After being taken from their mothers and leased to Massillon's football team, the cubs are stored in a garage by a member of the booster club and forced to attend all of the school’s football games. The cub is placed in a small cage on the sidelines, surrounded by bright lights and loud sounds. Fans often crowd around the cage to gawk at the animal. One Ohio resident claims that he hated when his team played Massillon and stopped attending games because of what he saw there. "The noise would scare the cubs and it would just huddle in the corner of cage. And then they give the cub effigies of the opposing players. If the cub would not attack them, they would physically harass and prod the tiger cub until it did."

Football crowd noise averages around 100 decibels, but because a tiger's hearing is 6 times more sensitive than a human's, the cub is experiencing as much as 130 decibels - loud enough to cause physical ear pain.  It's as if the cub were sitting 4 inches away from a jackhammer or an air raid siren. The unending wall of noise overwhelms the tiger so much that he often loses control of his bowels. In an interview, one of Obie’s handlers admitted, “The band noise makes him nervous. It makes for a messy cage after the game.”

After their season as Obie is over, the cubs are “returned” to Stump Hill, where they are  bred to produce more cubs for profit or sold into private hands. Tiger Ridge Exotics, a facility which was noncompliant with animal welfare laws and recently had its animals seized by the state, had 4 former Obies. Two mascots have been sold to circuses. And others are suspected to have been shot by law enforcement after their mentally unstable owner released them in the town of Zanesville, Ohio. But because the USDA does not track the acquisition or sale of privately-owned tigers, it's impossible to know where the cubs end up, and that's a huge problem.

Privately-bred tigers have ended up as living targets in canned trophy hunts, killed and eaten as "exotic meats", and slaughtered and sold into the illegal international wildlife trade. Any one of them could have been an "Obie."

And while a few lucky Obies may have eventually ended up at legitimate sanctuaries, these rescue organizations must assume the financial burden of caring for the tigers for life. Annual food costs alone can add up to $10,000 for a single tiger. With an estimated 20-year lifespan, that’s $200,000 to feed one Obie. These sanctuaries are already struggling to provide for the animals which need their help. They simply cannot afford the constant influx of cubs being dumped by the Massilon football program.

This inhumane and irresponsible practice wastes valuable funds, places an incredible burden on reputable animal sanctuaries, and supports a cruel industry which gives no thought to the welfare of animals – all for the sake of “tradition”.

Even worse, it teaches that animals – including endangered species like Obie - are disposable “props” that can be “thrown away” after a single football season.

The Columbus Zoo, Big Cat Rescue, and many other reputable organizations have expressed concern about this irresponsible practice. Even Massillon’s local newspaper has agreed: “This is one tradition that the Massillon Tiger football program can and should live without.”

Tigers are not disposable. Urge the Massillon Tigers to permanently bench this outdated, inhumane, and costly "tradition"!