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A Guy and His Pet Tiger Walked Into a Bar — Find Out What Happened Next

By John Platt
Takepart.com March 4, 2014

Of all the things one might expect to see on a city street at 7:30 p.m. on a Sunday night, a tiger on a leash probably isn't one of them.

That's what several people in the Chicago suburb of Lockport encountered on Feb. 16 when John Basile, owner of the Big Run Wolf Ranch, took his pet tiger cub, Shere Khan, for a casual stroll. After crossing the Ninth Street Bridge, which prompted several stunned gawkers to snap his photograph, he even brought the tiger into Uncle Ritchie's Place, a bar known for its Bloody Marys.


My name is Khan, Shere Khan

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How Basile or the ranch acquired a tiger, an animal native to the Himalayan foothills, is a mystery. "A tiger in the U.S. can be purchased online or in person for as little as $300," Born Free USA CEO Adam Roberts said last week in a statement.



Even though tigers are an endangered species—with a wild population of fewer than 3,200 individuals—as many as 7,000 tigers live in private captivity in the U.S. alone. Most of these are crossbreeds—mixes of the six remaining subspecies of tiger—and therefore useless for conservation breeding.

more at http://news.yahoo.com/guy-pet-tiger-walked-bar-happened-next-224051594.html

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FOX 32's Craig Wall with Shere Khan
 
People who saw the tiger that night said it was a little disconcerting seeing what is usually considered a wild animal.

"I was a little scared, like I was surprised to see somebody with a tiger, like just walking the streets like it was a normal thing, like a dog or something," said Ethan Autman, a witness to the scene that night who recorded video of the animal.

Basile said that he took the tiger to the bar to promote Wild Fest, an upcoming event he was taking part in with other wildlife educators where people get to see the tiger up close. He said at no time was anyone in the bar in danger.

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Critically Endangered Sumatran Tigers Trap Five Men Up Tree for Days

After being circled for almost a week, the men are finally rescued.


Would you be able to survive five days up a tree with a pack of these staring at you? (Photo: Andrew Winning/Reuters)

By Joanna M. Foster
July 09, 2013

It's easy to admire the majesty of tigers when you're on your couch watching NatGeo, or smugly sitting behind several feet of glass at a zoo. But would you still think they were pretty kitties if tigers had chased you up a tree and kept you there for days, circling watchfully below?

That's exactly what happened in Sumatra to a group of men who were rescued Monday from an unimaginable five-day ordeal involving the world's rarest tiger.

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Sumatran tigers are critically endangered. At the turn of the century, there were as many as 1,000 tigers on the island. Today there are as few as 350 left in the wild. They live only on the island of Sumatra, where their habitat is rapidly shrinking, replaced by oil palm and coffee plantations. The decline of their natural prey species brings them into conflict with livestock owners, and incidents like this weekend's make it even harder for locals to live side by side with these intimidating predators.



Sumatran tigers are also lucrative targets for poachers, who can sell their body parts to Asian "medicine" markets. According to Panthera, one of the world's leading big-cat conservation groups, about 50 Sumatran tigers were killed every year between 1998 and 2002. Over three-quarters of those tigers ended up on the illegal wildlife trade market. And since 1990, three subspecies of tigers have gone extinct: the Bali tiger, the Caspian tiger, and the Javan tiger.

http://www.takepart.com/

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sadly extinct now:

Bali tiger

The Bali tiger (Panthera tigris balica), harimau Bali in Indonesian, or referred to as samong in archaic Balinese language, was a subspecies of tiger which was found solely on the small Indonesian island of Bali. This was one of three subspecies of tigers found in Indonesia, together with the Javan tiger, which is also extinct, and the critically endangered Sumatran tiger. It was the smallest of the tiger subspecies.

The last specimen definitely recorded was a female shot at Sumbar Kima, west Bali, on September 27, 1937. However, a few animals likely survived into the 1940s and possibly 1950s. The subspecies became extinct because of habitat loss and hunting. Given the small size of the island, and limited forest cover, the original population could never have been large. (wikipedia)


The hunting party of Baron Oskar Vojnich with a Balinese tiger, shot at Gunung Gondol, NW Bali, Nov. 1911

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Javan tiger

The Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica) is an extinct tiger subspecies that inhabited the Indonesian island of Java until the mid-1970s. It was one of the three subspecies limited to islands. (wikipedia)


Javan tiger photographed by Andries Hoogerwerf in Ujung Kulon National Park, 1938

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