The fanciest thing about my high school graduation (which was held in a town 50km away from my school because there wasn’t a big enough venue available in our horrible little hamlet) was that they somehow managed to wrangle enough balloons to do a balloon drop thing at the end of the night. At the time, it seemed incredibly dope. The students of Christopher Columbus High School, Miami would scoff at this. They are used to the finer things. Things that the staff of Maryborough‘s Brolga Theatre and Convention Centre wouldn’t even dream of. Things like live tigers.
Yes, in a truly, madly, and deeply American fashion, students of the school enjoying their prom (this is some sort of American word, I’m not entirely sure what it means) on Friday night were treated to the sight of a caged tiger, alongside other caged animals including a fennec fox, a lemur, two macaws, and various other birds.
Although certainly spectacular, as ABC News reports, not everyone was happy with it. After facing backlash from students, the school issued a statement saying that the tiger was totally fine, actually:
The tiger, which was displayed for a few minutes in a cage, was never harmed or in danger, was not forced to perform, was always accompanied by his handlers, and for the great majority of the time, was laying down in a relaxed state, facing away from the audience.
One student uploaded several videos of the animals:
Ron Magill, a spokesperson for Zoo Miami, indicated that he was pretty baffled at the decision:
The tiger is clearly looking for a way to get out of that situation, it’s not difficult to interpret that behavior…He was surrounded by people, cell phones, lights, jugglers juggling fire. I really don’t know what they were thinking.
America is wild, man.
