Florida Food Stand’s Lion Tacos Causing Uproar
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Digital Vision/Thinkstock(TAMPA, Fla.) — A Tampa, Fla., food stand is cooking up controversy thanks to a new menu item: lion tacos.
Taco Fusion was already popular for using meat like elk, kangaroo and zebra in its dishes, but the addition of lion to the menu has brought the claws out.
“We’re getting bomb threats, and everything else,” owner Ryan Gougeon told The Tampa Tribune. “Some guy just called and said he’d kidnap me and grind me up for a taco.” Police are investigating death threats.
Gougeon insists that the meat for the lion tacos — which sell for $35 a pop — comes from a farm that raises the animals for meat.
The practice isn’t illegal, Gougeon explains, because lions are a threatened species, not an endangered one.
For now, he’s apparently holding firm.
“The fact that they’re trying to bully us now just eggs us on to keep carrying it,” he told the paper. “They want to restrict our freedom of choice.”
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