This tiger mom keeps close watch on her Bengal ‘babies’

Bengal tiger trainer Vicenta Pages grew up in the circus.

The 30-year-old is a third-generation animal trainer and fifth-generation circus performer. She is one of just a handful of female tiger trainers in the U.S.

She brings her big cats to the 2016 Georgia National Fair, one of the new attractions at the fair, which opens Thursday and runs through Oct. 16.

“I grew up doing all kinds of different things — acrobats and aerialists and animals,” said Pages, who travels with her “significant other” and their two children, ages 4 and 10 months.

She learned how to train big cats from her father, Jorge Pages Jr., and her grandfather, the late Fred Logan, a well-known elephant trainer who also worked with lions. Logan also trained her father.

Her mother, Freida Logan Pages, an all-around circus performer, rode elephants and was also an aerialist.

“She did pretty much a little bit of everything,” Vicenta Pages said.

Her younger sister and brother still work in the family company, Florida-based Pages Circus. Her sister works with lions and tigers, and her brother, a daredevil, rides in the Globe of Death.

“My dad’s family originated from Cuba in the ‘60s, and they got their start on Ringling Brothers,” Pages said. “They had their own circus back in Cuba.

“But when communism took over, they had to flee their country and came here to America, and they started from nothing. They started on Ringling Brothers as concessionaires and doing small things in the show, and then, slowly but surely, they worked their way up to having their own company.”

Pages, who’s been training tigers for 16 years, debuted her tiger show in her family’s company. Then she contracted with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey for four years before venturing out on her own.

She and her six big cats are on tour eight to nine months a year. She has three color variations: golden royal Bengal tiger, white royal Bengal tiger and snow tiger.

Although her heart is the circus because she loves to perform, Pages said the circus industry itself has not being doing well, and circuses are becoming more scarce. Also, some people oppose the idea of animals being kept in captivity.

Fairs and festivals, where her Bengal tigers are exhibited, give people a better idea of how the big cats are cared for and treated, she said.

Pages’ tigers were born in captivity and would die in the wild if they were released, she noted.

“They would literally sit in the wild and say, ‘OK, somebody is going to come and feed me eventually.’ They don’t know how to hunt. They don’t know how to do anything on their own.”

‘THEY ARE LIKE KIDS’

Her tigers range in age from 2 to 14 years and weigh 300 to 500 pounds each. They each eat 10 pounds of meat a day, from chicken leg quarters to pot roast and beef brisket.

“They’re carnivores, so they’re strictly on an all-meat diet.”

Her show begins with an educational segment about the state of the dwindling Bengal tiger population in the wild and moves to how her tigers are taken care of and how they are trained.

“We bring our ... babies out a couple at a time or one at a time,” Pages said. “(It) depends on their temperament on that day.

“They are like kids. They each have their own individual personalities,” she said. “It depends on who is willing to actually come out on certain days.”

She demonstrates to the audience how the big cats are trained with a piece of meat at the end of a stick. They are never harmed, she said.

“The sticks and the whip are ... used as extensions of our arms to guide them in the direction that we would like them to go because they are tigers,” Pages said. “They have teeth and claws. They can — and will — scratch you or bite you.”

Pages said she’s never been charged or hurt by any of her tigers. She even performed with some of her older tigers up until her eighth month of pregnancy with each of her children.

She said she is more attentive with the tigers at each new location.

“It’s a new exposure for them and attractions around them. So it takes a couple of days for them to settle in.”

The tigers are on display at the South Gate from noon to 9 p.m. each day of the fair, and Pages is generally on hand to answer questions.

Her show is at 7:30 p.m. on opening day, Thursday. Then the show is offered three times daily at 1:30, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. through the duration of the fair. The shows are free, covered by general fair admission. (For information about the 2016 fair concerts, schedules and prices, call 478-987-3247 or visit www.georgianationalfair.com.)

Pages asked that those who attend a show not to distract them or call out the tigers’ names during a performance. Fairgoers should always remain behind a fence around the caged show ring at all times, whether during the show or when viewing the big cats.

“You’re going to see tigers doing their natural abilities,” Pages said. “They’re not going to be jumping through a ring of fire or anything like that because, of course, tigers don’t do that in the wild.

“But in the wild, you know, they do stand up on their hind legs, they do jump over objects, and it’s just a basic series of interactions that the tigers do together.”

What is uncommon is that the tigers perform together.

“In the wild, they do live alone,” Pages said. “They’re solitary animals.

“So for them to actually interact all together at different points, ... that’s a pretty big accomplishment.”

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 2:39 PM with the headline "This tiger mom keeps close watch on her Bengal ‘babies’."