Cops hunt escaped lions, tigers in Ohio

2011-10-19 19:01

Columbus - Dozens of large exotic animals including tigers, lions and bears were hunted down and shot after their owner opened their cages at his Ohio farm and then killed himself, officials said on Wednesday.

The animals roamed off the property and one went as far as an interstate highway after being let loose shortly before dark on Tuesday near Zanesville in eastern Ohio.

Authorities shut down schools and warned residents to stay indoors as they rounded up the wild beasts.

"We are not talking about your normal every day house cat or dog. These are 300-pound Bengal tigers that we had to put down," said Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz. "I gave the order ... that if animals looked like they were on their way out, they were put down."

Numerous complaints

Lutz said 48 to 51 animals had been kept on the farm and that only three - a grizzly bear, a mountain lion and a monkey - remained unaccounted for.

The farm was owned by Terry Thompson and authorities said they had received about 35 calls in the past seven years about the menagerie. Complaints ranged from animals running loose to not being treated properly, Lutz said.

"We've handled numerous complaints here, we've done numerous inspections here," he said at a news conference. "So this has been a huge problem for us for a number of years."

Thompson was found dead from a self-inflicted wound when authorities went to the farm on Tuesday following reports of animals running free, Lutz said. They found gates and animal pens open when they arrived.

"There were animals running loose outside the fenced area," he said. Some, including primates, were secured on the farm.

Lutz said the animals kept at the farm included wolves, grizzly and black bears and many types of "big cats" such as cheetahs, mountain lions and leopards, in addition to lions and tigers.

The sheriff said they tried to shoot some of the animals with tranquiliser guns but encountered problems.

Shoot-to-kill

"We just had a huge tiger, an adult tiger that must've weighed 300 pounds that was very aggressive," Lutz said. "We got a tranquiliser in it and this thing just went crazy."

The tiger then had to be killed.

One bear attacked a law enforcement officer, Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo, told ABC News earlier.

Another one - some type of big cat - wandered onto a highway and was hit by a vehicle, Lutz said.

Lutz said he issued a shoot-to-kill order on Tuesday evening and stationed officers on Interstate 70 about a mile west of the Zanesville city limits to prevent animals from crossing.

"We were not going to have animals running loose off this farm at night," he told reporters.

Hanna told the news conference Lutz and his deputies did the right thing.

"These are dangerous animals," Hanna said. "He and other people there are doing everything they can to capture the animals humanely but these are dangerous animals."

Earlier, Lutz described the animals found as "mature, very big and aggressive."

- Reuters