Summit County Fair triggers debate over treatment of tigers
TALLMADGE — There’s a cat fight at the Summit County Fair.
Fair directors are standing by their decision to host a tiger show — featuring white tigers and orange tigers — at this year’s fair, while some area residents are using social media to express concern over the big cats’ welfare and saying they will boycott the fair.
“I was shocked to stumble upon many cages holding TIGERS. Yes, tigers (in OHIO??!). The tigers were kept in these small cages for HOURS before the ‘show,’” said one area woman in a Wednesday post on her public Facebook page.
This post — which was picked up by discussion website Redditt — garnered more than 500 comments, many of them condemning the fair for including the Nerger tiger show in this year’s entertainment lineup. Some commenters said they didn’t have a problem with the show.
Included with the woman’s post is a video showing a man using a stick to prod one of the tigers into what appears to be the caged area in which the tigers perform. The tiger show includes the animals standing on pedestals, jumping over one another and jumping through hoops.
By Thursday evening, the video had more than 50,000 views.
Judit Nerger of Florida, who owns and operates the tiger show with her husband Juergen, said Thursday at the fairgrounds in Tallmadge that the cages — used while the tigers are on the road — are eight feet long and eight feet wide and meet federal regulations. She pointed out that she had connected two of the cages, giving two of tigers a bigger space in which to hang out.
She said the stick is used “to get them up — it’s not hurting them. It’s just a little pressure under the belly.”
“These guys are our family members,” she said. “Even though they are outside and in cages, we treat them like pets — it’s not just a job (running the tiger show). It’s more than that.”
Howard Call, a director of the Summit County Fair, said Thursday, “We feel all the animals are well taken care of, whether it’s those in the tiger show, the 4-H exhibits or open-class exhibits (non 4-H exhibits).”
The tigers, he said, “can stand in the cage, walk around.”
Call, chair of the fair’s program committee, said he understands “people’s feelings” — their argument that animals in shows are being exploited.
“But I also feel for the people who want to see this type of show,” he said, noting that the tiger show this year has proven to be a popular attraction.
Call and Angie Hawsman, also a fair director and a member of the fair program committee that Call chairs, said the Nergers seek to educate in their shows, talking about tigers in the wild (theirs were all born in captivity) and threats to the big cats.
They couldn’t recall public backlash when the fair previously hosted a tiger show. This was in 1999, 2000 and 2001 — before the days of social media big guns Facebook and Redditt.
At least two Ohio cities have banned exotic animals from circus acts that come to their towns.
In 2017, Delaware became the first Ohio community to enact such a ban.
Earlier this year, the Cincinnati city council approved such a ban. The city already had a law on the books that restricted people from owning or displaying wild animals.
The fair board released a statement to respond to concerns about the tigers, saying the tigers are treated with “loving hands and respect” as are “our other fair animals.”
Debbie Medkeff of Cuyahoga Falls, a retired school nurse, contacted the Beacon Journal on Thursday after reading about the tigers on Facebook.
“I was planning to go up there (to the fair) and (now) I personally will not go,” she said, echoing many of the comments on Facebook.
“I don’t have any idea what that (a tiger show) has to do with a small county fair,” she said.
“You don’t go to a zoo and see (animals) performing tricks,” she said. “They’re in things like wildlife habitats.”