Tiger removed from Albert Lea (MN) home (Should there be laws regulating "exotic" pets)

Minneapols (Red) Star Tribune ^ | 02/12/02 | David Chanen

[rightwingreligiousfanatic]

The fifth-grade boy had scratches and bite marks and was falling asleep in class.

School officials couldn't believe the reason he gave: the baby tiger that slept in his bedroom was keeping him up at night.

Sure enough, officers found a malnourished 35-pound tiger cub, whom the boy called Anna, chewing on a piece of chicken in his family's home in Albert Lea.

[rightwingreligiousfanatic]

What's wrong with ordinary cats and dogs?

[rightwingreligiousfanatic]

Anna plays with scratching post...

[RosieCotton]

The pictures in a larger size:

What enters into these people's heads when they decide to take on a wild animal as a house pet is beyond me, especially with a young child in the home! Nuts!

[rightwingreligiousfanatic]

Thanks for enlarging, I should have done that!

Yeah, she sure is a cute little thing though, isn't she? But as a pet?? Come on!

[HairOfTheDog]

I had to dig deep to find this story, you have heard it before, but it is a good one!

This happened the day before the State of the Union Address this year:

~~~~~~~~~~

I just had a plumber here fixin' my two drippy faucets.

When he was all done and was on his way out he says, "You or any of your friends ever have horses that are put down?"

"Well, once in a while, yeah.... why?" was my answer. (where are ya goin' with this?)

"Well, I want them. The horses that have been put down."

"Why?"

"I want the meat."

"Why?" (Why do people with really bizarre requests make me pull the reason out of them with a truck?)

"I would feed them to my cats."

"You must have a lot of cats!"

"No, just two."

"Um... Lions?" (If you get any more obtuse I am gonna reach up and poke your eyes out.)

"Tigers."

"Wow".


Now..... The guy could have been a little less mysterious about his bizarre little question. But I then started to get some real information out of him. He usually buys whole turkeys and chickens and beef parts and such, and recently someone gave him a horse that had died, and he had really liked that.... lots of meat, and free.

"I said, but what about the drugs?" and he said that if the horse was going to be put down with drugs that he couldn't use it, only if it had been shot.

I said, "Well, no horse I know is going to be shot in the head after 25 years of loyal service. They are going down with lots of very pleasant drugs." He said, "I understand."

So I said, "Well, I had not considered feeding my old friend to a tiger before, but I don't know why not... If I know of someone who has lost a horse from natural causes, I will try to bring up your tigers at an appropriate moment."

~~~~~~~~~~

Well, once he mentioned the tigers, I knew I had heard about this guy before. I asked him if he was the guy in the Chehalis Chronicle a few months back. (How many local guys have tigers, anyway?)

When he moved to the place he now lives in there was a story in the Chehalis paper about his new neighbors being a little concerned. While I agree it is highly strange, in his defense, the big pictures of his cats and their new compound that were in the paper looked like pretty healthy cats and a fairly big clean compound. (I tried to find this story online, but that newspaper requires a subscription fee to search archives)

I am sure that finding enough affordable meat to feed two tigers consumes this man's entire life. I hope he does a good enough job finding it. I heard that a cougar (less than a quarter the size of a tiger) kills about one deer a week, if deer are plentiful.

~~~~~~~~~~

End of story

[RosieCotton]

Thanks for enlarging, I should have done that!

No problem! Actually I didn't enlarge...just clicked on the links to the larger photos on the original website and posted those.

Yeah, she's cute...but at 450 pounds...well, even declawed, she could be VERY dangerous! I wouldn't want a 450 lb. golden retriever, let alone something that can't really be thoroughly tamed!

[GovernmentShrinker]

Not to mention that it was an underfed tiger sharing a room with what the tiger would naturally regard as a nice meal . . .

[goodieD]

The focus of this story shouldn't be about whether it's "nice" to keep "exotic" pets but whether it's safe to store children and wild animals in the same room. I like animals, but they aren't nearly as important as children.

[thegreatbeast]

Don't be so anxious to write specific laws. A good prosecutor can carve up a turkey in a dozen different ways.

[RosieCotton]

I don't know how I feel about making more laws about situations like this. For the most part, I'd say more and more piddley, overly specific laws are the last thing this country needs. But what the heck happened to common sense??