PETA – No More Live Animal Mascots Following Sugar Bowl Incident

You may have seen the video on social media or even on the national sports broadcasts. It happened during the Allstate Sugar Bowl Tuesday night in New Orleans. Bevo the longhorn cow mascot of the University of Texas was not too pleased with his personal meeting with Uga, the University of Georgia's Bulldog mascot.

Here is an even better view of what transpired along the sidelines before the game.

A cow and a dog getting together and spooking one another, that's not usually the kind of thing that makes too big of a ripple in the local consciousness here in the Deep South. However,that brief but not unexpected dust-up was all the folks at PETA needed to fuel a campaign to end live animal mascots. 

PETA posted on their website statements suggesting that universities such as Texas, Georgia, and yes, LSU should retire their live mascots. While I usually don't make a habit out of agreeing with the opinions of PETA I do see their point about live animals, noisy stadiums, bright lights, lots of people, and the opportunity for a more egregious incident to occur as far as live animals are concerned.

I personally don't see PETA's request or statement actually changing the landscape of any of the college mascot traditions. I am willing to bet that college mascots such as Bevo, Mike the Tiger, Uga, Ralphie the Colorado Buffalo, and that bird they let fly around the stadium and poop in your popcorn at Auburn all receive better than excellent care.

Perhaps it was the need to "make good television" that officials with the Sugar Bowl decided to put the two mascots in such close proximity. Maybe we shouldn't do that in the future. Let each mascot have its own space. Let the handlers and caretakers do what they do best and let's stop trying to politicize every aspect of sports.