The Hillsdale County Fair is usually a place to ride the Ferris wheel or indulge in fried food, but this year, visitors could also meet a baby tiger.
Representatives from Premier Animal Attractions Inc. — a family-owned, private zoo — offered fair-goers the opportunity to hold and be photographed with Aurora, a 13-week-old Bengal tiger.
Senior Sheridan Markatos anticipated meeting her favorite animal all week and immediately fell in love when the tiger was placed in her lap.
“Her paws were so big! She was wrapping them around my arm as I was feeding her the bottle,” Markatos said. “I just wanted to take her home with me.”
“There was no way I was missing that opportunity,” sophomore Jessica Hurley said. “It was totally worth twenty dollars.”
A steady crowd of spectators crowded Premier Animal Attractions’s tent the entire fair week, eager to catch a peek of Aurora climbing and running in her cage between photos. When Andrew Gehringer, her handler, would approach the cage with a bottle of milk, she hungrily lept into his arms so he could deliver her to the participants waiting on a nearby bench.
Although Aurora is young, she already consumes three pounds of meat per day. In maturity, she will weigh around 400 pounds and consume over 100 pounds per day.
Participants also had the opportunity to pose with a Fennec fox or a Sulcata tortoise.
