BATON ROUGE, La. – A caged Bengal tiger was carried onto the field at Tiger Stadium for the first time in nearly a decade prior to the start of Saturday night’s game between No. 1 LSU. 14 and Alabama no. 11, fulfilling the wishes of Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry.

The tiger wasn’t the one living on campus, Mike VII.

Following the death of former school Tiger Mike VI in 2016, LSU announced that future Mike the Tigers would no longer be brought onto the field.

According to the school’s website, Mike VI, who died of a rare form of cancer, attended 33 of 58 houses between 2007 and 2015.

While the university’s current live mascot, Mike VII — an 8-year-old, 345-pound tiger donated to the school from a sanctuary in 2017 — is not brought onto the field for games, visitors can still see the tiger in the 15,000 pounds. square meter premises, which is located on the campus adjacent to the stadium.

As a solution, Landry arranged for a tiger to be imported from Florida for the game—much to the chagrin of animal rights activists, who protested outside the stadium.

As the tiger was towed onto the field with a black curtain draped over the cage, massive display boards played a short video detailing the history of LSU’s live mascot.

The stadium lights dimmed and a spotlight was pointed at the cage as the curtain was lifted, revealing the tiger inside as many fans cheered.

Initially, the tiger was lying down and soon it started walking in circles.

A few minutes later, the cage was removed from the field as the pre-match festivities continued.

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