Tiger Found Near Texas Border Neighborhood in Poor Conditions

Lions, and Tigers… IN THE BACKYARD?! OH MY! Seeing a video go viral online of a tiger in a residential backyard near El Paso, Texas was NOT on my bingo card this year!

If you thought your neighbor's pet chihuahua was wild, think again because just across the border from El Paso, officials in Juárez found an actual tiger! And no this wasn’t a movie scene from the Hangover, it was real life!

A video was shared on El Paso’s FitFam Instagram page with a caption that read, 

“Meanwhile, in Ciudad Juárez... a tiger was rescued from a rundown property.”

 

According to Mexico’s National Park for the Protection of Animals, the tiger was being kept in a makeshift space with no proper flooring, zero water access, and was apparently being fed chicken remains. 

KVIA reported that the big cat was seized as a precautionary move, due to "minimum welfare conditions" and a complete lack of legal documentation. In other words, this tiger wasn’t supposed to be there, and no one was taking care of him properly. 

But the real question in my mind is: how the heck do you even go about sneaking a tiger into your home? Who wakes up one day and says, “Hey, you know what would complete my backyard setup? A jungle predator that should be living in the wild but instead I want to live in a rundown dirt yard”

The tiger is now in the care of professionals, and thankfully, no one — human or feline — was hurt in the process.

So next time you hear strange noises in the neighborhood, maybe don’t assume it’s just someone’s big cat… it could actually be a big cat.