A roaming tiger, which terrified residents of Houston, Texas as it wandered its streets, is still wanted, but its suspected owner has been arrested, local police said on Tuesday. “The tiger has not yet been located”, said the police of the largest city in Texas on their Twitter account.
Its alleged owner, a 26-year-old man who was on parole and implicated in a murder case, is accused of having fled the officers who came to arrest him at his home, taking the animal in his car.
According to his lawyer, the tiger does not belong to him.
The feline in freedom, with a collar, was seen on Sunday wandering the streets of a residential area of the city, filmed by some neighbors amazed to see a tiger in their garden.
A policeman living in the neighborhood, who was not on duty but had been informed of the situation, intervened to try to control the animal, pointing his gun at it. “I didn’t want to shoot him at all”, he then explained to local television KHOU. “He didn’t sound very aggressive. “
The officer had asked the owner of the tiger, who was on site, to retrieve his animal. The man had obeyed, and fled, according to local police.
5,000 tigers in captivity
In the city of Houston, unlike some of the surrounding counties, having these types of wildlife in your home is not allowed.
Texas is nevertheless known to concentrate a significant number of tigers in captivity. State law allows you to own it, as long as you register and make sure it is locked up.
In 2014, WWF estimated that nearly 5,000 tigers lived in captivity in the United States, a number greater than the world’s wild tiger population.
–United States. Wild tiger wanted in Texas after roaming Houston streetsOuest-France.fr—
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