PETA to protest Siegfried & Roy’s final show
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When magical duo Siegfried & Roy perform their final show Saturday night in Las Vegas, PETA plans to be there to protest.
The pair haven’t performed since Roy was mauled by a tiger in 2003; Saturday’s performance is to be a comeback and a farewell. The performance, to be held at Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel, is slated to occur during a dinner called ‘Keep Memory Alive’ for donors to the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute.
PETA members plan to gather outside the Bellagio holding signs that read ‘Retire the Tigers’ and ‘Make Animal Acts Disappear,’ references to the performing animals the group says should be sent to a sanctuary after Siegfried & Roy’s departure from the stage.
The group says performing big cats are routinely mistreated; kept in small, barren enclosures; and ‘denied everything that is natural and important to them.’
‘Siegfried and Roy have made a fortune, and they owe it all to their exploitation of these tigers,’ PETA’s Debbie Leahy said of the group’s rationale for the protest. ‘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.’
Do you agree with PETA that the big cats should be allowed to retire when their owners do? Do you think it’s cruel to make animals such as tigers perform in shows like Siegfried & Roy’s?
-- Lindsay Barnett