Tiger reported loose on Bolivar Peninsula, judge says

GALVESTON -- Texas authorities busy trying to clean up after Hurricane Ike have a new problem on their hands: There's a tiger loose.

A county official said today that the animal somehow left its enclosure at an exotic pets center in Crystal Beach. Animal experts are coming in to try and catch the tiger.

Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough put it this way: ``Turns out there's a tiger, and I understand he's hungry ... so we're staying away from him.''

Crystal Beach is on the Bolivar Peninsula. The area is one of the hardest-hit by Ike. The news follows reports of a lion holed up in a Baptist church with its owner on Bolivar Peninsula as well as livestock and other animals roaming amid Hurricane Ike's wreckage.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6005149.html

from sat about people in a shelter living with a tiger in a cage in the back. Guy had a "pet" and didn't want to leave it. I wonder if it was the same tiger.

Eeek.

:yoiks:

I hope the people who own these big cats have to pay some penalty for not getting them out of the path of the hurricane. Idiots!

:yoiks:

Just tranq it. No need to go safari and kill it.

cant spell shet

sometime soon. Please don't let her go down there. She'll kill it and hang its head on her wall.

Run, kitty, run!!!!

there is no place for this tiger to go.. irresponsible animal husbandry has doomed this poor creature.. He will wander around, injured and hungry, and then someone will shoot him... The place he lived is no doubt, damaged or gone, and the people caring for him are porbably wiped out financially too..

:(

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080917/ap_on_re_us/ike_tales_of_survival

(snip)
The full-grown lion was from a local zoo, and the owner was trying to drive to safety with the animal when he saw cars and trucks stranded in the rising floodwaters. He knew he and the lion were in trouble.

He headed for the church and was met by a group of residents who helped the lion wade inside, where they locked it in a sanctuary as the storm raged. The water crept up to their waists, and two-by-fours came floating through broken windows. But the lion was as calm as a kitten.

When daylight came, everyone was still alive.

"They worked pretty well together, actually," said the lion's owner, Michael Ray Kujawa. "When you have to swim, the lion doesn't care about eating nobody."
(snip)