BATON ROUGE, La. — Gov. Jeff Landry on Tuesday confirmed his support for resuming the tradition of bringing Louisiana State University’s live tiger mascot onto the football field before home games.

It’s been nearly a decade since a Bengal tiger was rolled out in a cage under the lights of Death Valley, LSU’s famed Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, where the school’s football team plays. University officials have not said publicly whether they are willing to revive the tradition, but that didn’t stop Landry from offering his own opinion when asked by reporters.

“I think the opportunity to put our mascot back on that field is an incredible opportunity,” Landry said during an unrelated news conference Tuesday.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has vehemently opposed the idea. In early September, the organization sent a letter to Landry calling out the tradition, describing it as cruel and dangerous to the well-being of the mascot and adding that tigers “are loners by nature who don’t belong in noisy football stadiums.”

“A return to the bad old days of using a wild animal as a sideshow in 2024 is the last thing LSU should do, and PETA calls on Governor Landry to abandon this stupid idea,” the letter said .

On Tuesday, Landry said that “anyone who is worried about this needs to calm down.”

The Associated Press emailed a spokesman for LSU, the athletics department and the university’s school of veterinary medicine seeking comment but did not receive an immediate response.

For years, the school’s live mascot drove around the stadium before home games in a trailer pulled by a pickup truck with several LSU cheerleaders on it.

Before entering the stadium, the cage with the tiger nicknamed Mike in it was placed next to the opponent’s locker room – so the visiting team had to walk past it. The tiger used to be pushed until it roared.

In the early 2000s, vet school no longer allowed poking the tiger; instead, a stuffed Tigger doll was waved in front of the tiger until it roared. The veterinary school supervisors were the ones who decided not to bring the tiger into the stadium anymore.

Some of the live mascots even traveled with the team and were brought to area games, the 1985 Sugar Bowl and the 1991 New Orleans Superdome.

Following the death of the school’s Tiger, Mike VI, in 2016, LSU announced that the 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 homes between 2007 and 2015.

While the university’s current mascot, Mike VII — an 8-year-old, 345-pound tiger donated to the school from a sanctuary in 2017 — will not be brought onto the field for games, visitors can still see the tiger in its 15,000 square feet large area located on campus and next to the stadium.

In the past, animal rights groups have called on LSU to stop keeping live tiger mascots. The school says it provides a home to a tiger in need of one while also working to educate people about “irresponsible breeding and the fate of tigers held illegally and/or inappropriately in captivity in the United States.” says the athletics website.

Louisiana isn’t the only school to host a live mascot. Other examples include Yale University’s Handsome Dan, a bulldog; University of Texas at Austin’s Bevo the Longhorn, who appears on the field before football games; and Ralphie the Buffalo from the University of Colorado running across the field with his players before kickoff.