PETA to protest Siegfried & Roy’s final performance

Denise Truscello

Siegfried and Roy pose for cameras with a litter of tiger cubs.

Friday, Feb. 27, 2009 | 2:02 p.m.

Siegfried & Roy

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While the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute hosts its “Keep Memory Alive” charity dinner at the Bellagio on Saturday, PETA members will converge outside to protest Siegfried & Roy’s final performance at the benefit.

Members of the animal rights organization will hold signs that read “Retire the Tigers” and “Make Animal Acts Disappear,” urging the release of the big cats Siegfried & Roy still own.

PETA wants the famous cats retired to an accredited sanctuary.

Siegfried & Roy have not performed since Roy was mauled by a tiger onstage at The Mirage in 2003, after the tiger was reportedly struck with a microphone repeatedly, PETA said. The pair will perform a finale show at the “Keep Memory Alive” dinner Saturday for more than 1,000 donors who have contributed to the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute.

PETA claims big cats that are used in performances are confined to small enclosures, abused and denied everything that is natural to them.

"Siegfried and Roy have made a fortune, and they owe it all to their exploitation of these tigers," PETA Director Debbie Leahy said. "The least that they can do is retire the animals to a sanctuary where they can live out their lives in peace and never be beaten, mistreated or caged again."

Discussion: 1 comment so far…

By OldEnvironmentalLawyer

2/28/09 at 12:42 a.m.

Suggest removal

I am sick of these sanctimonious PETA people. Their demand that Sigfried & Roy's big cats be retired to an "accredited sanctuary" is a crock. The PETA know-it-alls and their wack job friends think only they know how to take care of big cats.

The truth is that Sigfried & Roy's care of their big cats has been scrutinized and regulated by veterinarians and by State and Federal regulators for years. The state and federal regulators are rational, practical, and generally not wack jobs. The veterinarians have professional credentials, which the PETA nut jobs do not have.

I'd rather trust Sigfried & Roy's ability to write checks to care for their big cats than trust the flea bitten, scraggly "sanctuaries", like the one in Mohave, which constantly struggle to raise money from charitable donations while at the same time paying comfortable salaries to their founders.