To the editor:

I am writing regarding the tiger mauling of Roy Horn of the Siegfried & Roy show. The media has covered this event extensively and focused on support of Roy Horn, but I think the mauling also serves as a salient example of why using animals for our entertainment is unwise. This tiger, after being forced to live unnaturally and perform unnatural acts, while existing in “prison” otherwise, finally showed that he/she had had enough. Wild animals are not meant to perform in such acts; if they were, they would not have to be beaten and tortured into performing for us.

I regret the suffering that Roy Horn is enduring and will continue to endure; I hope that others in the animal entertainment industry (and those who pay to observe such “entertainment”) will take note of this incident and consider carefully what they subject animals to in the name of “fun.”

Megen Duffy,

Lawrence