This isn't the kind of cat video you expect to find on the Internet.
On Tuesday, PETA made waves by posting footage that apparently showed Hollywood animal trainer Michael Hackenberger "viciously" whipping a Siberian tiger. (Though Hackenberger owns the tiger that appeared in 2012's Oscar-winning Life of Pi, the animal in the video is evidently a different tiger.)
The man in the video cracks a whip several times and swears. The clip then cuts to an interview with Hackenberger, who explains the best places to whip the tiger -- "in the face and the paws," which "sting more."
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"If... we'd been running a videotape the whole time you were here, and you did a 45-second... montage of the times I struck this animal," Hackenberger says at the end of the clip, "PETA would burn this place to the ground."
Hackenberger, who's also the director of Bowmanville Zoological Park in Ontario, responded to the footage with a 31-minute video of his own, titled "Our Response to PETA's Lies."
"I do not strike this animal. I do not strike him. I strike the ground beside him," Hackenberger says. He also claims that he actually hit the tiger just two times, rather than 20 times in a row, as PETA claims.
Despite the response, PETA is sticking to its guns in a statement released after Hackenberger's rebuttal:
"Michael Hackenberger was caught on camera repeatedly and viciously striking a young tiger who lay cowering on his back out of fear and discussing the most effective ways to hit animals, stating quite plainly, 'I like hitting him in the face' – yet Hackenberger lies even about having said this. Wild animals like Uno perform stressful and confusing tricks because they're terrified that they'll be beaten if they don't. There is no excuse for beating an animal, any more than there is for hitting a child."