MIAMI - US animal rights group PETA has filed a complaint with Louisiana state authorities after a caged Bengal tiger was wheeled onto a American football field before a collegiate game, the group said.
PETA said the pre-game stunt at Louisiana State University's Tiger Stadium, where the college team was playing Alabama before a crowd of more than 100,000 fans, was cruel and illegal.
Video footage of the incident shared widely online showed the tiger in a cramped cage being towed onto the field by a vehicle.
LSU had a long tradition of parading a live tiger on the sidelines of its games until the practice was abandoned in 2015.
US media reported that Louisiana's Republican Governor Jeff Landry had pushed for the return of a tiger at Saturday's game.
"Trucking a stressed tiger across state lines and cramming him into a clear box in a raucous football stadium is not only cruel and dangerous, it's also apparently illegal in Louisiana," PETA said in a statement.
"PETA has filed an urgent complaint with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries asking it to pursue all available remedies... for this cheap stunt and urges LSU to ignore the bizarre -- and unlawful -- mandate from Louisiana's attention-seeking governor and reject the idea of bringing tormented wild animals to games."
LSU has a live tiger as a mascot that is kept in a 15,000-square-foot (1,394-square-metre enclosure at the university. But the college reportedly rejected requests to use the feline at Saturday's game.
Local media reported that authorities instead arranged for a tiger owned by a Florida exotic animal handler to be used -- a move PETA said breached state laws about transporting animals.