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Tiger Training with the Ringling Bros.

WTOP Staff | WTOP_website@wtop.com

March 20, 2014, 2:19 PM

The big cats behind the new Ringling Bros. show, "Built to Amaze" met some local students March 20 leading up to the first performance of the season.

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
The students from D.C. Bilingual Public Charter School watched as the cats performed stunts from "Built to Amaze."

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
Leading the show was Chilean tiger trainer Tabayara Maluenda.

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
Tabayara Maluenda says he is a sixth generation circus performer. "When you want to be a doctor, you go be a doctor," he says. "Always, always, in the circus I look for the animals."

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
"I was born for doing this beautiful and amazing job," says tiger trainer Tabayara Maluenda.

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
Tabayara Maluenda says it can take up to two years before a tiger is ready to perform for a crowd.

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
He has been training these cats for about one-and-a-half years, Tabayara Maluenda says.

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
Their names are Janet, Judy, Tabitha, Taba and Napoleon, and they are all between one-and-a-half and two years old.

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
Did you know tigers can eat 60 pounds of meat in a single night? That's about the human equivalent of 385 hamburgers, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey says.

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
Fun fact: No two tigers have the same pattern of stripes.

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
Tabayara Maluenda says his mother, a trapeze artist, didn't want him following in his father's footsteps as a tiger trainer, but Maluenda was attracted from a very early age to the giant felines.

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
Trainer Tabayara Maluenda has been bitten before, and says it serves as a good reminder that he is dealing with wild creatures despite how much he loves them.

(WTOP/Alicia Lozano)
WTOP/Alicia Lozano
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