The Martlet

Suzy the tiger is famous.

She isn’t a spokesperson for cereal or gasoline. She’s simply a tiger that happens to be living in the Highlands – a district just northwest of Victoria.

Her story wavers depending on who you feel more sympathy for: the neighbours who live in fear that the tiger will escape; her owner, Dave Bennett, who spent approximately $15,000 creating a home for Suzy, or the Highlands Council who’s trying to evict Suzy by a controversial bylaw.  

But how should we feel about the tiger herself?

Currently, her beauty is a symbol of municipal politics, animal rights, land-owner rights and passing bylaws. 

Her eyes hold a personal history full of conflict. Being a tiger bred by a film producer in Vancouver means that Suzy doesn’t qualify to live at a zoo. She isn’t a pure bred, but rather a mix of Siberian and Bengal.  She lived near Lake Cowichan until problems arose, forcing her owner to sell her. 

Bennett offered to provide Suzy with a stable existence (one better than a few competing offers to buy her for her pelt). Bennett even went about checking with the city bylaws to construct a proper enclosure, using extra support like deep cement walls so that Suzy couldn’t dig her way out. 

The future looked good for Suzy until the Highlands Council passed a debatable bylaw a few weeks ago, banning residents from keeping some exotic animals.

One example? Siberian and Bengal tigers.

In the middle of the drama, the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg, Colorado, offered to take Suzy. 

Despite concerns about the sanctuary voiced by Bennett and Suzy’s previous owner, it holds several tigers on a much larger and more open property. 

If her best interest was the issue, it would make sense that she would move.  Unfortunately, the cost of moving a large tiger like Suzy is not cheap (especially for a man who just spent $15,000 towards building her a house).

Enter, a hero: Ron Cheeke, owner of the Loghouse Pub on Millstream Road. Cheeke offered to pay for the expensive trip. Still, Bennett declined, confident he can fight the bylaw and win; for Suzy’s sake — right?

What the future holds for Suzy is unpredictable. 

Whether she stays or goes, animals like her are unpredictable by nature and therefore create an unpredictable environment. Her beauty will be used again and again to get a message across from all parties.

In the end, Suzy will remain a solitary symbol for what a single person, a community and a municipality can do when forced to focus: it took something as exotic as a tiger to bring out fast-acting passion.

Imagine what we could do if we worked this way on the issues that tend to fall behind the label of “glamorous.”

Imagine if we thought everyday people were as important as a tiger.