Stone me: intruder finds tiger in abandoned house

A MAN who broke into an abandoned house to smoke marijuana stumbled across more than he bargained for when he discovered a pet tiger inside.

Police in Houston, Texas, said the “concerned citizen” contacted them after he found the overweight mammal crammed inside a tiny cage.

Officers initially assumed the caller was hallucinating.

“They saw a tiger in this building, this vacant house that’s obviously been abandoned for some time,” said Sergeant Jason Alderete, of the Houston Police Department’s animal unit. “They were trying to get into this house to smoke marijuana. We questioned them as to whether they were under the effects of the drugs or they actually saw a tiger.”

After securing a warrant to search the property, officers did indeed find the overweight female tiger, which weighed about 160kg.

Despite the beast appearing “friendly” to the police, they decided to tranquilise her so she could be transferred to the city’s animal shelter.

Conditions in the abandoned home were poor and the cage was far too small for the tiger to be living in, police said.

But there were also several packages of meat nearby, suggesting its owner had not abandoned the pet entirely.

Heidi Krahn, the head of a local animal charity, told a local TV news channel she had arranged for the tiger to be rehomed at a specialist facility.

There are about 7,000 tigers living in captivity in the US, nearly twice as many as the estimated 3,800 still in the wild.

In many states – including Texas – the private trade of tigers is mostly unregulated. (© Independent News Service)