BATON ROUGE - As graduation season kicks off at LSU, students are flocking to campus landmarks for the perfect photo — but one popular spot near Mike the Tiger’s habitat comes with a warning. 

Every morning, veterinary student caretakers walk through Mike's habitat, checking fences and picking up litter. During the final weeks of the semester, they've noticed an uptick in champagne corks and confetti.

“It seems to be a pretty decent pile of it every few days," Ginger Guttner with LSU Veterinary Medicine said. "At least once or twice a week they're having to go through the yard, and because its confetti is not very large pieces it's very small things they have to pick up and they have to make sure they get all of it."

Guttner says these materials can pose serious health risks to the Bengal tiger.

"The concern is that again he might accidentally, I don't think he'd go and try to eat it, but if it's floating in his pool and he drinks the water and ingests it somehow, it could cause an obstruction or some other health issue," Guttner said.

She emphasizes they're not discouraging photos, just asking for safer celebrations.

"This is a very important milestone in their lives. We want them to celebrate it and just do it in a way that doesn't create trash," Guttner said.

There are safer alternatives.

"A couple of years ago people were using colored smoke. I thought was kind of cool because it was different and it just dissipated, you could frankly just photoshop that stuff in at the point, or open the champagne and maybe shake the bottle and let the champagne blow out but don't worry about the cork," Guttner said.

Caretakers have even found caps and gowns inside Mike's habitat, which serves as a reminder that it's best not to throw anything near him at all.