Update May 2005: In a letter to PETA dated May 10, 2005, the Department of the Army states, "After consultation with the Permits Branch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's Division of Management Authority, I am pleased to report to you that the permit application ... to export a male captive-bred generic tiger to the Baghdad Zoo in Iraq has been denied."

Veterinarian Leon Barringer of Monument, Colorado, has applied to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a permit to export a 16-month-old male tiger to the Baghdad Zoo in Iraq.

The tiger is intended to "replace" a tiger who was shot and killed by an American soldier in September 2003. This incident took place during a drunken party when a U.S. soldier was bitten while attempting to feed the tiger through the cage bars and, in revenge, a fellow soldier shot the tiger dead. The unfortunate tiger who was shot and killed has not been the only nonhuman casualty of the military conflict in Iraq. According to media reports, hundreds of animals at the zoo have been killed, stolen, eaten, stuffed, sold, or let loose by looters, or they escaped when mortar blasts damaged their cages.

The military conflict in Baghdad is far from over as newspapers and television remind us daily. Incidents of extreme violence are still commonplace. It has already been tragically demonstrated that the animals at the Baghdad Zoo are not exempt or protected from the military conflict raging around them, and while Baghdad remains a war zone, sending this tiger there places him squarely in harm's way.