Big Cat Tragedies in the News
- October 2003 – A 425-pound tiger is found in a Harlem apartment in New York City
- October 2003 – Famous entertainer Roy Horn is nearly killed by a “trained” tiger
- December 2003 - A 10-year-old child is dragged under a chain-link fence in North Carolina and killed by his aunt’s pet tiger.
- July 2004 – A 600-lb tiger, owned by actor Steve Sipek, escapes and prowls a Miami neighborhood for 24 hours before being killed by a safety officer. A year later, Sipek buys two more tiger cubs.
- August 2005 – A 17-year-old Kansas teenager, Haley Hilderbrand, is killed by a tiger at a USDA-licensed wildlife facility.
- November 2005 – A tiger escapes a USDA-licensed facility in Greenwich, NY while its cage is being cleaned and is found in a nearby backyard.
Between January 2004 and August 2005, there has been an average of 2 potentially dangerous big cat escapes a month in the U.S.
Read a full list of Big Cat incidents
Big Cat cubs, such as this baby
leopard, look like cuddly kittens, but they soon grow into large, dangerous
carnivores.
© IFAW/J. Hrusa. Photo ©
Consider This
In the recent case of the on-stage mauling of famous tiger trainer Roy Horn in Las Vegas, the tiger had been reared and trained by the very person it attacked and very nearly killed.
