An alternative winter break trip to Carolina Tiger Rescue in Pittsboro, N.C., has turned into a much bigger endeavor.
Hailey Morris, a second-year public health student, got together with other members of the trip to form a new student organization, Generation Tiger.
“I think a lot of us kind of expected just to work with tigers,” said Morris, the new group’s president. “But we got there, and there’s just so many tigers that are sent to sanctuaries or have to be euthanized because they just become too big or aggressive for their owner to care of them.”
Generation Tiger currently has 10 to 15 members, a constitution and a faculty advisor, so Morris expects that the club will become official within the next few weeks.
According to its website, Carolina Tiger Rescue is a “nonprofit wildlife sanctuary whose mission is saving and protecting wild cats in captivity and in the wild.” The sanctuary takes care of tigers rescued from private owners.
The animals have often been abused or kept in small cages. In South Carolina, it is legal to buy and keep a tiger.
“It just opened our eyes to everything going on,” Morris said. “We have no idea who has them, if they have one in their backyard.”
One of the most surprising things the students learned was that there are 10,000 to 20,000 tigers in captivity, but only about 3,200 left in the wild. Morris said that after the experience at the sanctuary, she knew she had to take some kind of action.
“It’s such a huge issue, and we were so blown away, and we didn’t know what we wanted to do,” Morris said. “We just knew we wanted students back at home to know about this.”
Morris attended a conference at the University of Missouri after the trip about clubs that support wild cats. About 12 other universities have clubs dedicated to helping tigers, including Clemson’s Tigers for Tigers organization.
Since then, Morris has been passionate about saving tigers. She hopes that Generation Tiger will be effective in spreading awareness about the issue to USC students and the surrounding community by hosting policy and fundraising events and writing to members of Congress.
She eventually hopes their efforts will help pass the federal Big Cats and Public Safety Protection Act, which would ensure that big cats “do not threaten public safety, diminish the global big cat conservation efforts, or end up living in deplorable conditions where they can be subject to mistreatment and cruelty.”
“I just became passionate about it because I love tigers and it’s really scary knowing there’s only 3,200 left in the wild. I want my kids and my grandkids to see them and know what they are,” Morris said. “They’re such beautiful creatures, you can’t help not love them.”
USC is currently planning another winter break trip to the Carolina Tiger Rescue, and Morris hopes that it becomes a regular project that can raise interest in the issue and her organization.
“It’s really hard to explain,” Morris said. “You kind of have to go and hear the stories and meet the animals, so I think every year that students go on the trip we’ll have more and more students wanting to join.”