Behind the brambles and the brick walls, there are nine tigers

For over a year our investigators have been monitoring the tigers of Mario Masson. Barricaded in the heart of a village, behind the thick protection of brambles growing over large brick walls that run along a national road. The trainer protects his tools of work from view. Behind a used car for sale business, the nine tigers that serve as his livelihood are pacing around, locked in a lorry cage, whether it is raining, windy or in temperatures where the thermometer reads 40 degrees Celsius. Sultan, Begel, Junior, Hashley, Tara, Ima, Houna, Hister and another whose name we don’t know. Very rarely are they allowed outside of their cages and when they are it’s to obey and undergo a life of stress under the threat of the whip.

Abused from birth

At the Saint Paul amusement park Mario Masson shows off his trained tigers, then offers spectators to hold a baby tiger in their arms while being photographed, all with cash subsidies. The show is accompanied by a speech that is only propaganda against those who defend wild animals that are exploited by circuses.

All these tigers were born in captivity and were then torn from their mother at an early age. They are the subject of wild genetic experiments to obtain inbred individuals with coats of white or orange with ochre stripes, deformations and with notorious genetic diseases. In addition to this the potential underlying traffic of lion cubs and tigers it allows the working season to gain access to young cubs, available at any time. Their manipulation by humans is nothing more than mistreatment. We have publicly denounced these acts - common in this environment - and attacked the park, as well as more recently the ministerial decree on captive wild life and facilitating unsupervised farming.

Locked up all year round ...

This summer these nine adult tiger products have appeared six times in public within four days during the circus festival, daily life couldn’t be less rosy. We are revealing today the reality of their daily lives: they are locked up all year round, except on the rare occasions for (shows, short films or photos in magazines) ...

The winter quarters are just a name, our investigators have seen them on the spot each time they went there. Both in the hot summer, weather in the region of Picardy is changing and, in the fall, and winter when the cages are battered by the wind and the freezing rain during those wet and cold seasons. They were photographed and filmed locked inside these caged compartments which is no more than a heavy-duty trailer for up to six days in a row. During the six days the tigers were held in confinement and were filmed, they had but two brief periods where they were allowed out, this being observed and filmed under great risk… 

Protected animals, in danger of extinction, here they are enslaved

No enrichment or stimulation is offered to these tigers to break the monotony of the passing hours. The (minimum) regulations require that they can stretch their legs daily in an exercise space, which is the approximate size of a circus ring and that they have access to a swimming pool. Once again, all this was absent. At most, they change compartments when their litter is cleaned.

Female or male, in the wild each would reign over a territory of several thousand hectares of tropical jungle ... Here, only Sultan benefits from an individual cage (but without a roof!). The others are crammed in four by four. They who enjoy independence more than anything, are more stressed than ever, enslaved and forced to live with their fellow tigers, under the eyes of their jailers. In the evening, they have to fight to get their food, water which is vital, is only distributed to them sparingly. Then, the walls of the truck are closed, this is their misfortune, the truck becomes a dark box…

For these reasons and in addition to recording such revolting images of these nine convicts locked up day and night and then made available to the public, we are pressing charges for ill-treatment committed by a professional, placement or maintenance of a captive wild animal in a habitat, environment or installation can be cause of suffering, and irregular operation of establishment. We propose to take charge of these tigers and place them into one of the sanctuaries of which we are a partner.