[ back ] Ferocious felines at the fair If you visit to the Ohio
State Fair, where the Marcan Tiger Show will be presented three
times daily through Aug. 12, you might catch the cats involved
in a favorite hobby: napping. Messenger photos by John Matuszak
Tosheeba, one of the stars of the Marcan Tiger Show at the Ohio
State Fair, looks like a big house cat playing with her favorite
ball. But she shows off her strength by carrying a bowling ball
in her mouth. Dr. Josip Marcan exhibits his animals and talks
about the need to preserve this highly endangered species at 1,
3 and 7 p.m. daily. But their owner, Dr. Josip Marcan, is alert
to the threat tigers face, and he wants to wake up his audiences
to the need to preserve these magnificent animals. In the wild,
“they are doomed to extinction, unfortunately,” declared Marcan,
who has worked with tigers and other big cats for 50 years.
Three sub-species are already gone. The Bengals are the most
numerous, but there are 1,500 or fewer of those outside of
captivity, a