This rather old story is not such an oddity as you might think...I hear a lot of similar stories being told all the time ( someone sent it to me and asked if such things still happen here--of course they do) (especially with snakes these days it seems)
From the New York Times:
From a Cub to a Menace, and Now a Mystery
His
obsession began innocently enough, with the puppies and broken-winged
birds every little boy begs to bring home. Over the years, Antoine
Yates's taste in animals grew ever more exotic, neighbors said, and his
collection came to include reptiles, a monkey or two and, according to
one neighbor, even a hyena.
He had a deep affection for living creatures in need of a home that he might have picked up from his mother, Martha Yates. She had raised dozens of foster children in her five-bedroom apartment in a public housing high-rise in Harlem, according to one of her foster sons.
In time, Mr. Yates's most exotic pet, a tiger that he named Ming, grew to more than 400 pounds, and that happy home disintegrated. Terrified, Ms. Yates, 67, packed up the last two of her foster children and moved to a suburb of Philadelphia earlier this year, neighbors said.
Mr. Yates, 37, hard pressed to control the tiger, apparently decamped, too, to a nearby apartment. He continued to feed the tiger by throwing raw chickens through a door opened just narrowly enough to keep a paw the size of a lunch plate from swiping through, neighbors said.
He had a deep affection for living creatures in need of a home that he might have picked up from his mother, Martha Yates. She had raised dozens of foster children in her five-bedroom apartment in a public housing high-rise in Harlem, according to one of her foster sons.
In time, Mr. Yates's most exotic pet, a tiger that he named Ming, grew to more than 400 pounds, and that happy home disintegrated. Terrified, Ms. Yates, 67, packed up the last two of her foster children and moved to a suburb of Philadelphia earlier this year, neighbors said.
Mr. Yates, 37, hard pressed to control the tiger, apparently decamped, too, to a nearby apartment. He continued to feed the tiger by throwing raw chickens through a door opened just narrowly enough to keep a paw the size of a lunch plate from swiping through, neighbors said.
On
Saturday, the police moved in, alerted by Mr. Yates's curious call in
which he claimed to have been bitten by a pit bull. They discovered Ming
and managed to remove him, but only after a sharpshooter rappelled down
the side of the apartment building and shot it with tranquilizer darts.
The mission created a swirl of excitement in the neighborhood and left a
series of questions for an assortment of officials. The police are
trying to determine where Mr. Yates got a tiger cub and how he managed
to raise it from kitten to menace in a public housing project.
Officials at the city's Administration for Children's Services said they were trying to determine whether foster children had lived in the apartment while the tiger and other dangerous animals were there. Officials of the New York City Housing Authority were trying to determine how the tiger escaped the notice of workers at the complex. As was obvious on Saturday, his roar is ferocious.
People who live in the building in the Drew Hamilton Houses at 2430 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard said the tiger had lived among them for at least three years. His presence, while strange, was widely known and did not really alarm anyone, they said.
Jerome Applewhite, 43, who lives on the 18th floor, first encountered Ming about three years ago, when he stopped at the apartment for a visit and saw Mr. Yates sitting with the tiger cub cradled in his arms.
''He was feeding it with a bottle,'' Mr. Applewhite said. ''He cared for his pets.''
It did not surprise him much, he said, that an animal seen only in the East -- or the north, if that includes the Bronx Zoo -- should show up in a city apartment. ''It was a house pet,'' Mr. Applewhite said. ''To me that is cool.''
City officials did not share his view. ''Tigers are dangerous animals,'' Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told reporters yesterday at a news conference on Fifth Avenue before marching in the Pulaski Day Parade. ''Clearly this tiger should not have been anyplace in New York City outside of a zoo.''
Investigators from the New York Police Department were questioning Mr. Yates yesterday, who was placed under guard after he was located at a Philadelphia hospital. On Wednesday, he went to Harlem Hospital Center, where he gave skeptical doctors his account of being bitten by a pit bull. He checked out early Saturday, prompting an inquiry into his whereabouts.
Mr. Yates could be charged with reckless endangerment, the police said, and he will be returned to New York after he is released from the Philadelphia hospital, the police said.
Officials at the city's Administration for Children's Services said they were trying to determine whether foster children had lived in the apartment while the tiger and other dangerous animals were there. Officials of the New York City Housing Authority were trying to determine how the tiger escaped the notice of workers at the complex. As was obvious on Saturday, his roar is ferocious.
People who live in the building in the Drew Hamilton Houses at 2430 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard said the tiger had lived among them for at least three years. His presence, while strange, was widely known and did not really alarm anyone, they said.
Jerome Applewhite, 43, who lives on the 18th floor, first encountered Ming about three years ago, when he stopped at the apartment for a visit and saw Mr. Yates sitting with the tiger cub cradled in his arms.
''He was feeding it with a bottle,'' Mr. Applewhite said. ''He cared for his pets.''
It did not surprise him much, he said, that an animal seen only in the East -- or the north, if that includes the Bronx Zoo -- should show up in a city apartment. ''It was a house pet,'' Mr. Applewhite said. ''To me that is cool.''
City officials did not share his view. ''Tigers are dangerous animals,'' Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told reporters yesterday at a news conference on Fifth Avenue before marching in the Pulaski Day Parade. ''Clearly this tiger should not have been anyplace in New York City outside of a zoo.''
Investigators from the New York Police Department were questioning Mr. Yates yesterday, who was placed under guard after he was located at a Philadelphia hospital. On Wednesday, he went to Harlem Hospital Center, where he gave skeptical doctors his account of being bitten by a pit bull. He checked out early Saturday, prompting an inquiry into his whereabouts.
Mr. Yates could be charged with reckless endangerment, the police said, and he will be returned to New York after he is released from the Philadelphia hospital, the police said.
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