Three years ago, on October 16, 2017, we lost our beloved Tony the Tiger. Not a day goes by where Tony is not on my mind; he has left his massive paw prints on my heart and on the hearts of his friends around the world. For 17 years Tony was confined to a “life” as a roadside attraction at Tiger Truck Stop in Grosse Tete. Louisiana, and because of Tony and his tragic story, people learned about the serious issue of privately owned tigers and big cats in the United States.
For many years Tony had tremendous support for his release to a reputable big cat sanctuary. The legal battle for Tony’s release was led by our very good friends The Animal Legal Defense Fundwho fought tirelessly for Tony. Sadly every court win in Tony’s favor for his release was met by his owner’s appeals and the case dragged on for years. I would like to once again thank The Animal Legal Defense Fund who never gave up on Tony, and who continue to advocate for captive tigers and wild animals. Learn more about ALDF’s work for captive wild animals at : https://aldf.org/focus-area/captive-animals/
One of the best ways we can honor Tony is to support The Big Cat Public Safety Act. This federal bill addresses two of the biggest sources of abuse of big cats by ending owning big cats as pets and stopping exploitative roadside zoos from offering cub petting and photo ops. Read more about this bill and ask your Congress Members for their support at : https://aldf.org/article/add-your-voice-support-the-big-cat-public-safety-act/
In Tony’s memory, all of his social media accounts remain open to network information on ways we can help animals. We hope you will continue to support them.
To ALL of Tony’s amazing friends : THANK YOU! Because of you and your support Tony will never ever be forgotten.
” T ” : I miss you handsome tiger. You are in my thoughts every day and in my heart always.
For ” T ” Always ~ #FreeTonyTiger #TonyAlways 🌈 🐯 🌈
Two years ago, on October 16, 2017, we lost a tiger who touched the hearts of people all over the world. While Tony’s story is tragic, confined for all of his life as a roadside attraction at a truck stop in Louisiana, he brought tremendous attention to the serious issue of captive tigers and big cats in the United States.
Unfortunately ALDF victories in court that ruled the permit to keep Tony illegal were met by his owner’s appeals and Tony’s case dragged on for years.
I will never forget the times I visited Tony; I was overwhelmed to be in his presence, but saddened and disturbed that here was this magnificent tiger imprisoned at a truck stop…each time I told him to stay strong and that we’d never give up on him.
I feel that one of the best ways we can honor Tony is to continue to be a voice for captive wild animals.
To learn more about ALDF’s work to help captive wild animals:
Support The Big Cat Public Safety Act : This federal bill addresses two of the biggest sources of abuse of big cats by ending owning big cats as pets and stopping exploitative roadside zoos from offering cub petting and photo ops. Read more about this bill and ask your Congress Members for their support at : https://bigcatrescue.org/big-cat-act/
In Tony’s memory, all of his social media accounts remain open to network information on ways we can help animals. We hope you will continue to support them.
Thanks to all of Tony’s amazing friends for your dedication throughout the years. You are all truly appreciated.
” T ” : you are in my thoughts every day and in my heart always.
Tony Cat supporting ALDF’s #TinyTigers4Tony Campaign
Apologies for the absence…recently I lost my own “little tiger” ~ my beautiful cat coincidentally named Tony. Back in 2008 a very good friend found Tony Cat’s adoption article in a local newspaper, (he was already named Tony by the shelter.) I read Tony’s story and once again felt fate brought me a very special boy. I adopted Tony Cat on September 3, 2008 and we shared almost 10 years together. I was truly blessed to know and share a life with this kind gentle soul. I like to believe my Tony Cat is with his “big cousin,” our beloved Tony the Tiger.
There is not a day that goes by where I don’t think of Tony the Tiger…I love this tiger and I’m so thankful I got to visit him and tell him how much he was loved by his friends and how hard we were all trying to help him. What a beautiful, majestic boy. Tony truly was and always will be the ambassador for captive tigers – he was known world-wide, and raised tremendous awareness to the issue. I’m sorry Tony never got a wonderful sanctuary home.
The tiger at the center of a years-long legal battle between animal rights activists and a Louisiana truck stop owner has died, but the owner’s desire to get another tiger means the fight likely isn’t over.
Tony, better known as Tony the Truck Stop Tiger, was euthanized Monday at the age of 17 after suffering from kidney failure. Michael Sandlin, the owner of Tiger Truck Stop in Grosse Tete, acquired Tony when the big cat was 6 months old. He would spend the rest of his life living in an enclosure by the side of the highway.
Courtesy of ALDF
Tony behind the fencing of his truck stop enclosure.
“He was an old man,” Sandlin told The Advocate. “You wish they could live forever, but of course, I wouldn’t want him to suffer.”
Sandlin also told The Advocate he plans to try to get a new tiger to live at the truck stop, which is heavily tiger-themed. The ALDF says its staff will do whatever it can to stop that from happening.
“We’re going to keep fighting and make sure there’s never another Tony,” ALDF attorney Anthony Eliseuson told HuffPost.
Sandlin, who did not respond to a request for comment from HuffPost, says Tony received exemplary care at the truck stop. He also argued that the tiger was attached to his human caretakers and was used to life at the truck stop. In Sandlin’s view, moving Tony to a sanctuary would have been cruel, since the truck stop was all the big cat had ever known.
But animal rights activists disagreed. At a sanctuary, they said, he would have significantly more space, access to a more natural environment and freedom from loud engines and noxious fumes.
The question of how Sandlin was able to keep Tony at the truck stop involves a long and complex legal history. In 2006, Louisiana put restrictions on private big cat ownership. In 2012, Eliseuson said, the ALDF won a judgment against Sandlin that invalidated his permit to own Tony. But in 2014, then-Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) signed a bill into law that exempted Sandlin from the big cat ban.
However, the 2014 law exempted Sandlin because it decreed that the ban didn’t apply to anyone who owned their animal prior to 2006. That means the exemption would apply only to Tony, not to tigers Sandlin might try to acquire now.
So how would Sandlin be able to legally get a new tiger? Eliseuson explained that around the time of the 2012 ruling, Sandlin also filed a lawsuit challenging the 2006 state ban on big cat ownership as “unconstitutional.” His argument was that the law is enforced unevenly and gives officials enforcing it too much power, The New York Times reported in 2013.
So far, that lawsuit hasn’t made much progress, according to Eliseuson. But if Sandlin were to win, it would make privately owning exotic big cats legal not only for himself but for anyone in Louisiana.
“If he were to ultimately be successful, he would invalidate the big cat ban,” Eliseuson said, adding that ALDF will continue to fight to uphold the constitutionality of the ban.
During the last 48 hours since we learned of the death of Tony the tiger, everyone at the Animal Legal Defense Fund has been moved and comforted by the outpouring of love people have expressed for Tony. We fought multiple legal battles for over six years to free Tony and move him to a reputable sanctuary, and we still aren’t done. We have two Tony-related lawsuits that will continue in the wake of his passing and are seeking to learn more about how he died.
The first lawsuit seeks to uphold the constitutionality of the Louisiana Big Cat Ban, a 2006 law that prohibits the private possession of big cats. If successful, this lawsuit would ensure that Michael Sandlin, the owner of Tiger Truck Stop, cannot condemn another big cat to the kind of life Tony had. Sandlin is fighting hard to fill Tony’s truck stop parking lot cage with another tiger, and we will do everything we can to prevent that from happening.
The second lawsuit concerns the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) refusal to recognize Tony as an “individual.” In April, the Animal Legal Defense Fund requested that the USDA conduct an inspection of Tony after learning that his health was in decline. We submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the inspection report and requested expedited processing, which FOIA requires when delayed disclosure “could reasonably be expected to pose an imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual.” Our request for expedited processing was denied because the USDA asserted that Tony is not an “individual.” In July, we sued the USDA for failure to recognize Tony as an “individual.” A victory in this lawsuit would enable the public to quickly obtain crucial information essential to protecting an animal’s wellbeing.
In addition, in the wake of Tony’s death we have made a request under the Louisiana Public Records Act, for a copy of Tony’s necropsy (an examination to determine the cause of death or disease) performed by Louisiana State University, where Tony died. We will carefully review it to determine what caused the alleged renal failure that led to Tony’s tragic death, and ensure it was not the result of improper care or treatment.
It is a tragedy that our years of litigation could not free Tony before his death. As Tony aged and his health appeared to decline, we feared this would happen, but the Animal Legal Defense Fund does not give up. We join the many advocates across the world in remembering Tony this week, and we promise to keep you updated on our work on behalf Tony and other animals like him.
For 17 years, Tony the tiger sat on the concrete floor outside a busy truck stop in Grosse Tete, Louisiana, while people around the world fought to save him.
On Monday, his story came to a sad end. Tony was euthanized by truck stop owner Michael Sandlin due to kidney failure and declining health, according to Louisiana outlet The Advocate.
“We are devastated that despite our best efforts, he lived and died caged at a truck stop that could never provide the life he deserved,” the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), which spent more than seven years trying to free Tony, said in a statement.
For nearly two decades, Tony’s story was a warning about what could happen to large cats and other exotic animals in states with too-loose exotic animal regulations. His cage was a barren wall of bars around a concrete floor, just yards away from constant highway traffic.
He was an attraction for truckers and visitors who would often gather around his cage — some visitors would report seeing people taunt or tease the elderly cat.
“It is a truck stop where it’s blacktop filled with diesel fumes and crowds of people that taunt Tony,” Carter Dillard, senior policy advisor (then director of litigation) for ALDF, told The Dodo in 2015. “It’s nothing like the environment he was born to inhabit. It’s torturous given his nature.”
Videos show the tiger pacing back and forth in his cage almost compulsively, a common sign of captive stress and stereotypic behavior in large cats.
Sandlin rebutted activists by noting that Tony had access to grass and that his cage was above the federal minimum. “To have these idiots, these nuts that think they know more about tigers than I do — I can’t stand it,” he told New Orleans’ Times-Picayune in 2014.
Sandlin, who also owns the truck stop, had purchased Tony in 2001 as a 6-month-old cub — though he already had a growing collection of tigers and a questionable history breeding and keeping animals.
In 1989 he had raffled off an 11-month-old tiger cub, noting the winner could do whatever they wanted with her: send her to a zoo, gift her to a friend. In 1997 Sandlin had sold a pair of tiger cubs for $2,500 to a couple on a camping trip — one of the cubs was later diagnosed with fluid collection in her joints from living on concrete. Sandlin also declawed several of his cubs — a serious procedure that can lead to lifelong health issues — with one of them dying following the surgery.
Sandlin had also racked up a long history of Animal Welfare Act violations, including USDA citations for failure to provide shelter, lack of clean water, and failure to provide veterinary care.
While organizations like ALDF and Florida’s Big Cat Rescue received increasingly frequent complaints from members of the public who were concerned about Tony, Sandlin butted heads with them, posting jokes about how activists would “taste like chicken” to Tony.
When it became clear that keeping Tony would be illegal under Louisiana’s welfare laws, Sandlin cozied up to local legislators. In 2014, then-Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal signed a law specifically exempting Sandlin from the restrictions on wild animal ownership that applied to everyone else in the state.
“He went to the legislature and got sort of what we call a law … just for him … unconstitutionally passed,” Dillard explained at the time. “It’s clearly illegal.”
For the next two years, ALDF and Sandlin continued to wage war in the courts. Just this past July, ALDF filed a lawsuit against the USDA for, among other things, refusing to expedite a FOIA records request on behalf of Tony. With awareness of Tony’s plight growing, ALDF and others were optimistic public opinion would shift far enough to make Tony’s eventual release inevitable.
But throughout it all, they recognized it was a race against time to free the aging tiger.
“Michael Sandlin seems to have dug his heels in, not because he doesn’t know what he’s doing to this majestic animal is wrong, but more because he doesn’t want to be told what to do,” Dr. Jennifer Conrad, a veterinarian and big cat specialist, told The Dodo presciently back in 2015. “It is sad to say that the 15-year-old tiger might not live long enough to see his rescue at this rate.”
While it might be too late for Tony, you can help ALDF continue its fight
Tony should have been allowed to live in a sanctuary, where he could feel grass under his paws. Photo Credit: Janusz Sobolewski/Flickr
For more than six years, the Animal Legal Defense Fund fought tirelessly to save a tiger named Tony from a cage in the parking lot of a Louisiana truck stop. Sadly, we received news this week that Tony had died of kidney failure after spending 16 years confined to his cage, living and dying as a roadside attraction. Tony’s plight is a microcosm of the problems with our legal system, a system that treats sentient beings as property and affords disproportionate political influence to their captors and abusers.
Tony was born into captivity, sentenced from birth to a life of exploitation, a gimmick used by his owner Michael Sandlin to sell gasoline at the Tiger Truck Stop. It doesn’t take a degree in veterinary medicine to know that a truck stop is no place for a tiger. But veterinarians and animal behaviorists weighed in emphatically on Tony’s behalf. Dr. Jennifer Conrad, a doctor of veterinary medicine with decades of experience with captive large cats, personally visited Tony and concluded that he was “exploited to the detriment of his welfare.”
Dr. Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, concluded that Tony’s enclosure was completely unnatural and totally unfit, and that the manner in which Tony was kept at the Tiger Truck Stop fell significantly below the bare minimum required to ensure his psychological welfare.
The state legislature and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) recognized that keeping wild animals in captivity causes immense animal suffering and threatens public safety, so they banned the private possession of tigers. But the agency bowed to pressure from the Tiger Truck Stop and issued it a grandfather permit to keep Tony in spite of the ban.
In early 2011—moved by Tony’s suffering and the passion of his supporters—we sued LDWF, arguing that the truck stop wasn’t eligible for a grandfather permit. And we won. The trial court ruled that because the truck stop violated a local ordinance prohibiting the ownership and exhibition of tigers, it couldn’t qualify for a permit. The court ordered LDWF to revoke the permit and prohibited it from issuing any new permits. The Louisiana Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s decision, leaving the Tiger Truck Stop and Michael Sandlin with an unlawfully possessed tiger and no permit to keep him.
That should have been the end of it.
LDWF should have seized Tony and sent him to a sanctuary where he could have lived out the last six years with grass under his paws, fresh air in his lungs, and caretakers who prioritized his well-being. Instead, Tony would spend the next six years as a victim to a lethargic legal system that failed him at every turn, notwithstanding the indefatigable efforts of his legal advocates.
What went wrong?
At the root of the problem is the fact that in the United States, animals are property. And any time one asserts the rights of property against the rights of its owner, the game is rigged. Tony’s “owner,” Michael Sandlin, was able to exploit a narrative of private property rights under siege, claiming over and over again that he had a God-given right as an American to own a tiger.
Sandlin even filed his own lawsuit, arguing that Louisiana’s ban on tigers violates his property rights. We intervened against Sandlin in the case to defend the ban and the right of the government to prohibit the inhumane captivity of wild animals. The case has been pending for more than five years. Although we expect Sandlin’s lawsuit to lose, as a delay-tactic to keep Tony trapped at the truck stop, it succeeded spectacularly.
Another troublesome aspect of our legal system also doomed Tony to die at the truck stop: the undue influence of money in politics and the corruption of the political process by those who abuse animals.
Tony’s sad story reveals America’s broken legal system, rigged to favor animal abusers. (image: ALDF)
In 2014, Sandlin convinced his state senator, Rick Ward, to introduce a bill to exempt Tony—and only Tony—from the state ban on big cats. The bill carved out a retroactive exemption to place Sandlin above the law that applies to all other Louisiana citizens, co-opting the legislature to undo the legal victory that revoked the truck stop’s permit.
Despite our on-the-ground efforts to stop the bill in Baton Rouge, it passed and was signed into law by then-governor Bobby Jindal. We challenged the new law as an unconstitutional “special law”—a giveaway to a private special interest at the expense of the public interest. But the lawsuit was bounced on a procedural technicality to a different court, then languished, awaiting a ruling from the court that didn’t come quickly enough to spare Tony.
All told, we filed four lawsuits, intervened in a fifth lawsuit, and fought legislatively for Tony’s freedom. Tragically, it wasn’t enough to overcome the lethargy of the courts to act—and the corruption of Louisiana politics.
But we will hold our grief over Tony’s death in our hearts and our memories as we continue to fight to prevent Michael Sandlin and the Tiger Truck Stop from replacing Tony with another tiger, and as we fight for the liberation of other wild animals from cruel captivity.
While we have had numerous legal victories for captive wildlife—from lions to tigers to bears and more—we remain committed to fighting for animals using the laws we do have—while simultaneously working to transform the legal system to recognize the obvious: Animals are more than just “property.”
The Animal Legal Defense Fund is deeply saddened by the death of Tony, the Siberian-Bengal tiger held captive in the Tiger Truck Stop parking lot in Grosse Tete, Louisiana. For more than seven years, we litigated on many fronts to free Tony, and we are devastated that despite our best efforts, he lived and died caged at a truck stop that could never provide the life he deserved.
We—like you—are frustrated and angered that Tony continued to suffer at the Truck Stop even after the Animal Legal Defense Fund successfully obtained a judgment in 2012 prohibiting Louisiana from issuing any future permits for Tony’s captivity. That judgment should have required the State of Louisiana to move Tony to a reputable sanctuary where he could have lived for the last five years in the naturalistic environment he deserved. Rather than giving Tony the life he deserved, however, the Louisiana legislature passed a law exempting the Tiger Truck Stop—and the Tiger Truck Stop alone—from the Louisiana Big Cat Ban, undoing our victory in court and trapping Tony at the truck stop.
Despite our best efforts, we were unable to get that corrupt legislative maneuver declared unconstitutional in time to save Tony. But rest assured our litigation efforts on behalf Tony’s fellow big cats will not end.
We will continue to fight with vigor to uphold the constitutionality of Louisiana’s Big Cat Ban against the challenges to that law from the Tiger Truck Stop’s owner, Michael Sandlin.A victory in this litigation will ensure that Tony will be the last tiger to suffer at the Truck Stop and there will never be a Tony II or Tony III who will have to suffer the same fate.
“Tony’s tragic death demonstrates how our legal system leaves wildlife, including members of endangered species like Tony, extremely vulnerable to exploitation by incompetent or uncaring individuals,” says Animal Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Stephen Wells.
While we are saddened that we were unable to save Tony from his tragic confinement so that he could join other Animal Legal Defense Fund clients like Rickey the Bear, Njjarra the Lion, and Bear the Wolf at reputable sanctuaries—we will continue to fight in the memory of Tony and the millions of other animals who have been mistreated, until no more animals are subject to such suffering.
GROSSE TETE – A popular tiger at a truck stop in Grosse Tete has been euthanized due to medical issues.
According to Ted Baldwin, the publicist of Tiger Truck Stop, Tony the Tiger was put down Monday. The tiger was 17-years-old, and had been at the truck stop since January of 2001.
Tony suffered from kidney failure and was in declining health, according to Baldwin.
A necropsy will be done by veterinarians to learn more about tiger illness.
Tony came under media attention after animal rights activists petitioned to removed the tiger from his truck-stop facility.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund, who is currently suing the truck-stop, released a statement regarding the death of Tony.
“The Animal Legal Defense Fund is deeply saddened by the death of Tony, the Siberian-Bengal tiger held captive in the Tiger Truck Stop parking lot in Grosse Tete, Louisiana. For more than seven years, we litigated on many fronts to free Tony, and we are devastated that despite our best efforts, he lived and died caged at a truck stop that could never provide the life he deserved,” the statement begins.
We are deeply saddened to share the death of Tony, the Siberian-Bengal tiger held captive in the Tiger Truck Stop parking lot in Grosse Tete, Louisiana. For more than seven years, we litigated on many fronts to free Tony, and we are devastated that despite our best efforts, he lived and died caged at a truck stop that could never provide the life he deserved.
While we are saddened that we were unable to save Tony from his tragic confinement, we will continue to fight in the memory of Tony and the millions of other animals who have been mistreated, until no more animals are subject to such suffering.
Three years ago, on October 16, 2017, we lost our beloved Tony the Tiger. Not a day goes by where Tony is not on my mind; he has left his massive paw prints on my heart and on the hearts of his friends around the world. For 17 years Tony was confined to a “life” as a roadside attraction at Tiger Truck Stop in Grosse Tete. Louisiana, and because of Tony and his tragic story, people learned about the serious issue of privately owned tigers and big cats in the United States.
Free Tony The Tiger 