The streets of Detroit were in Chaos early Wednesday night when the feud between the lions and tigers, the sports teams of the area, erupted into all out war. The tension had been building since the inception of the NFL's Lions franchise in 1930. City officials believed it was unwise to put a team named after lions in one that already had one named after tigers, due to the volatility of the two cat species. "There is a reason you don't put these two kinds of animals together," said San Diego Zookeeper Rich Blythewood. "They were just asking for trouble, and I'm surprised it took this long for something to happen."

The conflict broke out around 7:12 PM when a local butcher disposed of some expired strip steaks in the alley behind his shop. Some of the tigers and lions happened to be passing near the alley at that time and both wanted the steaks. They started biting and wrestling each other for the meat, and when other felines in the city heard, it devolved into a citywide brawl. Pedestrians on the street were mauled seemingly at random by the angry lions and tigers as they passed them. "They were so friendly before," said C.J. Kamp, a longtime Detroit resident. "I've shared a root beer float many times with a tiger, I've ridden a bicycle built for two with a lion, but now one of them just ate my legs, and the other a large chunk of the skin on my face. I don't know why we all can't get along."

A crazy scientist recommended one of the teams change their name to something unintimidating, like the Detroit Butterflies, back in 1992. But no one listened to him, and now we are all paying the price of the hostility between these two mascots. With 13 declared dead and 112 seriously injured, this is the worst documented citywide mascot feud since the one in Cleveland in 1976. That was where a pack of wild indians got in a violent brawl with the color brown, resulting in the deaths of 4. The incident in Miami last year, where the Marlins and Dolphins attempted to fight ended swiftly when both species realized they could not breathe oxygen and died on the streets. No one was injured there, although the city did smell horrible for several weeks.