Carole Baskin Blames Ted Cruz and John Cornyn for Loose Tiger in Texas (Video)
Baskin says that if the senators had helped pass the Big Cat Public Safety Act last year, “this wouldn’t have happened this time.”
Andi Ortiz | May 12, 2021 @ 7:20 AM
Photo: Getty/Netflix
It’s unlikely that anyone expected to see Carole Baskin brought onto CNN as a talking head, but that’s exactly what happened Wednesday morning. And the big cat activist had some pointed words for Texas senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn.
On Mother’s Day, a tiger was spotted roaming the streets of Houston and remains on the loose as of Wednesday morning. The big cat’s alleged owner, Hugo Cuevas, was arrested and charged with evading arrest. Cuevas was out on bond following a 2017 murder charge and was being held at a jail in Richmond, Texas.
Man who fled police with tiger arrested after high-speed pursuit
Man with tiger arrested after high-speed chase with police
Replay Video UP NEXT When Maria Torres and her sister-in-law got an emergency notification on the Nextdoor app Sunday night, they had to do a double-take. It said a tiger was on the loose in a nearby Houston neighborhood. Instead of staying in the house with their doors locked, the two women went on an impromptu safari. We got in the car and went to check it out, Torres told ABC News on Monday. When they reached Ivy Wall Drive in west Houston, they could barely believe their eyes. Torres took out her cell phone and started recording several people confronting a striped Bengal tiger, including an off-duty law enforcement officer backpedaling with his gun aimed at the big cat.
Illustration by Texas Monthly; Tiger: Getty
On Sunday, families around Houston celebrated Mother’s Day. Maybe they did so by watching the Astros hold off the Blue Jays to claim second place in the AL West or by catching up on something on Netflix. Or, if they lived on Ivy Wall Drive in a west Houston neighborhood just off of George Bush Park, they may have spent the evening avoiding being eaten by a tiger.
Apparently there s a tiger loose on my parents West Houston street? pic.twitter.com/TgdIiPSPKx robwormald (@robwormald) May 10, 2021
The first video of the escaped tiger began circulating on Twitter shortly after 9 p.m., shared by user @robwormald, whose parents live in the neighborhood. In the video, we can see a tiger prowling a residential neighborhood, moving with purpose toward a man later identified as an off-duty Waller County sheriff’s deputy who keeps a handgun trained on the jungle cat, shouting “No, sir” at the beast as it approaches. The video is a bit chop
Last modified on Wed 12 May 2021 04.33 EDT
A tiger was briefly on the loose in a Houston suburb on Sunday, terrifying residents before its owner grabbed it and fled in a car.
A 54-second video posted on social media showed the Bengal tiger roaming freely in front of houses in the Energy Corridor, 18 miles west of downtown Houston.
“Our Animal Cruelty Unit, along with [Barc, an animal shelter] are currently investigating the incident in which a tiger was seen at 1103 Ivy Wall Drive about 8pm on Sunday, Houston police said on Twitter.
“The male owner was seen escorting the tiger to the residence then putting it into his vehicle.”
Loose tiger could be around corner unless laws change, PETA says KTRK
Some quick facts:
About a century ago, 50,000 - 80,000 tigers roamed India alone.
Tigers are classified as endangered. It s estimated that only 3,500 tigers remain in the wild worldwide.
Experts say there may never be as many tigers as there were a century ago.
Tigers are not native to North America but are found in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, China, Malaysia, Russia, Nepal and Myanmar, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
As TigerGate and Tiger in Houston trended on Twitter, people wanted to know, how did this happen? Another question that popped up often was regarding the laws surrounding ownership of exotic animals in Texas, especially since this is far from the first time a tiger has gotten loose.