Cayman and Tiger in an Apartment-NY

**Sevens** · 10-05-2003, 11:15 AM

Check this out!

They found a guy in Harlem who had a full grown tiger and cayman (kinda like a crocodile) living in his apartment!

Here is the link:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast...ger/index.html

That would freak me out if somebody in my building was doing that!

I am glad they are charging the guy with reckless endangerment. The animals belong in the wild, not an apartment in NY.

**ramanth** · 10-06-2003, 08:59 AM

Is he nuts or something!?

Well fed or not, I hope they find that guy and arrest him.

Especially since he blamed his tiger bite on a pit bull. grr!!!

EDIT:
This update was posted in our local State Journal.

Tiger, Alligator in NYC Sent to Refuges

NEW YORK (AP) -- A pet tiger rescued from a Manhattan apartment after biting its owner will have a new home at an Ohio sanctuary with plenty of grass, trees and birds.

An alligator also recovered from the apartment was to be sent to an Indiana preserve, while their owner recovered from wounds from the 400-pound cat.

Police said Antoine Yates, 31, faces reckless endangerment charges after he gets out of a hospital in Philadelphia, where he fled. He was listed in good condition Sunday.

Yates told Philadelphia TV station KYW in a phone interview from his hospital bed that the tiger grabbed him and "tore open my whole leg down to the bone."

A veterinarian was to examine the tiger Monday at Noah's Lost Ark preserve in Berlin Center, Ohio, 15 miles west of Youngstown. The licensed facility takes abused and neglected exotic animals and warns that wild animals can't be tamed.

"We should just stop letting people buy them," preserve director Ellen Whitehouse said. "We shouldn't be breeding them in the United States."

A team of animal control officers, police and Bronx Zoo workers used a camera to track the animals in Yates' fifth-floor apartment in a Harlem housing project before tranquilizing and removing them Saturday.

Wes Artope, director of the city's animal shelters, said the tiger, an orange and white Siberian-Bengal mix, had been kept in the apartment since he was a 6-week-old cub. The 20-month-old tiger now weighs at least 425 pounds, Artope said.

The tiger and 5-foot alligator, both in good condition, were taken first to a local shelter, then to a Long Island animal sanctuary before authorities sought homes.

"Clearly this tiger should not have been in any place in New York City outside of a zoo," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday.

Yates was taken into custody Saturday night at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, police said. Yates told the TV station he was "trying to create a Garden of Eden, something that this world lacks."

**Dakota's Mommy** · 10-06-2003, 10:56 AM

Wow, I can't believe some people! While tigers can be cute, their possible danger is too much for me! I can't imagine anybody trying this, it's so crazy! Tigers belong in their own environment, not in an apartment!