Carver County Fair tiger show brings concerns about safety, animal welfare from Humane Society

The white Bengal tiger raised its large pink paws and stretched out against the wire enclosure as its trainer dangled a piece of raw meat on a stick. Hundreds of Carver County Fair spectators watched in awe, some just a dozen feet away from the animal.

Promoters of the twice-a-day Tiger Encounter show at the fair in Waconia promise it teaches crowds about big cats and the value of conservation. But an animal rights group is saying the circus-like attraction is far from humane — and dangerous to the public.

"These aren't house cats — they are large wildlife," said Zack Eichten, Minnesota's state director for the Humane Society of the United States. "This is just not a natural environment for them to be in."

The organization sent a letter to Carver County Fair organizers a week before the event started, asking them not to bring Tiger Encounter back next year, he said.

Jim Klein, president of the Carver County Fair Board, said fair organizers try to bring in a variety of acts "that can make [visitors] feel good."

"They love to see animals," Klein said. "The children just love it."

He said so far the tiger show has received a few complaints and "thousands of compliments." Shows have been well-attended since the fair started Wednesday, with the bleachers full.

"I think everything's been going well — animals are well-treated, clean, very relaxed," Klein said.

The Tiger Encounter show features trainer and owner Felicia Frisco, 30, leading three tigers around an enclosure for about 25 minutes using a stick with meat on it. Thursday, in front of the crowd, she urged the animals to lie down on metal platforms and stand on their hind legs to show the crowd their height. One drank from a baby bottle. After the show, audience members could pay $5 to feed the animals using a stick.

As Frisco led the big cats — one yellowish-orange and two white — an audio recording shared facts about tigers and their plight in the wild. Frisco said the show is educational and promotes conservation.

"They're facing mass extinction," said Frisco, who said she and the animals split their time between Florida and Illinois. "People that make connections with an animal, then they want to do something about it."

Frisco, who also works as a wedding planner, said the animals only perform four non-consecutive weeks out of the year and she doesn't work on training at all when they're not on the road.

New sights, sounds and smells "are the best things you can give an animal," Frisco said, adding that they're "not bored" on tour.

Exotic animals aren't uncommon at county fairs around the state, said Steve Hallan, president of the Minnesota Federation of County Fairs. "We've had them at our fair [in Pine County]. It's been a few years."

Fair organizers in Dakota County nixed a tiger display planned in 2019 after the Humane Society and a local big cat sanctuary raised objections.

Hundreds of spectators, including many small children, showed up to watch the tigers in Waconia on Thursday. Eichten, from the Humane Society, also attended.

Demand for such shows has declined over the last five years since the Ringling Brothers Circus stopped using exotic animals in its circus performances in 2017, Eichten said, and smaller outlets followed suit. The public is also increasingly concerned about the safety and ethics of big cat shows, he said.

The Humane Society publicly objects to exotic animal shows around the country, he said, and continues to work on both state and federal legislation banning the performances.

Eichten said big cats are often stressed by large groups of people and loud noises, and transporting them long distances requires they be kept in "very cramped conditions." The exhibit area is small, too, he said.

The animals wouldn't perform unnatural behaviors for an audience unless they felt compelled, he said. He added that the tigers could escape and hurt audience members or their trainer.

"What it really is doing is promoting behavior that shouldn't be replicated," Eichten said. "Ultimately, it's really at odds with conservation."

Klein, the fair board president, said he had "no comment" on the question of whether it was ethical for wild animals to perform in a show.

Dustin Thompson of Chaska brought his two kids to the Thursday afternoon show.

"It's a unique opportunity to see tigers close up," he said, adding that if the animals were performing every day, he would have concerns for their welfare. He said there are also ethical questions about zoos keeping wild animals.

As she waited for the show to start, Mary Baney of Norwood-Young America said she was concerned about the trainer's message, though she hadn't heard about the Humane Society's objections.

"I'm not sure I feel it's humane, either, because they're still captive and they're still being made to perform," Baney said.

Eichten said he hopes people who are worried about the animals' welfare will contact fair organizers and make a point not to attend the tiger show themselves.

"The fair is really supposed to be promoting local agriculture, and exotic sideshows just don't fit into that," Eichten said.