Tiger Truck Stop files appellate brief over Tony the Tiger

The owner of a Grosse Tete truck stop—known for the pet tiger it keeps caged on its premises along Interstate 10—is asking a state appeals court not to revoke its big cat permit on the grounds that it qualifies as a zoo. In briefs filed today with the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Baton Rouge, an attorney for Tiger Truck Stop owner Michael Sandlin argues that a lower court ruling revoking the truck stop’s big cat permit should be overturned because state law authorizes the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to issue such permits to so-called other zoos. “This truck stop is an ‘other zoo’ because a zoo is not defined in the law,” says the truck stop’s attorney, Jennifer Treadway Morris. “But it is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as a place where you exhibit a wild animal for public viewing, and they have been doing just that for 25 years or so.” In her brief, Morris also argues that the plaintiffs in the case, including the Animal Legal Defense Fund, had no legal standing to bring suit against her client. The iconic Tiger Truck Stop is located about 20 miles west of Baton Rouge in Iberville Parish. Attorneys for the state and the Animal Legal Defense Fund have two weeks to file their response.