Tiger cage was tampered with prior to escape, say cops

Laura Payton, The Province
Published: Monday, May 21, 2007

COWICHAN - Somebody tampered with the cage of a 90 kg Siberian tiger, allowing it to escape and roam the streets of Cowichan Lake this weekend, RCMP say.

"The lock was intact but the mechanism from the gate to the post was broken and left on the ground," said Cst. Brian Brown. He said there were tool marks on the hasp, a common metal device that can be installed on a door and used with a padlock.

"Anybody that would do that, whether an animal activist or whoever, sentenced this cat to death by letting it out into the community," said Brown. "It was not a very well-thought out plan." The nine-month-old tiger lives at Primate Estate, which owners describe as a wildlife sanctuary, on Vancouver Island.

The fugitive Siberian tiger was spotted just after 1 p.m. Sunday Brown says the owners, Jamie and her son Cody Bell, already knew the nine-month-old female was out. One of them was with the tiger when the RCMP arrived. "Eventually they lured the tiger into a small shed and then it was loaded into a transport container,"said Brown.

But residents say the tiger's foray into civilization is just the latest case of exotic animals running wild down their normally tame streets. Neighbours say they have stories going back nearly 15 years, including monkeys breaking into basements or garages to eat cat food, an oragutan sauntering down the street and horses galloping at full speed past their homes.

Corey Bath, who's 32 and has three small children, says the Bells have a longstanding problem with animals escaping their property.

Bath was 18 years old when she saw an orangutan running down the street. "I thought it was a bear and then, oh my god', it was a monkey," she said.

Bath is worried about her children, who are two, four and a half, and eight years old, encountering any of the animals from Primate Estate. "They can't even keep their dog in the yard," she said.

A spokeswoman for the Vancouver Humane Society says between the growth in exotic animal trade and the lack of provincial legislation in that area, she isn't surprised that exotic animals are escaping.

"This situation absolutely has to be addressed," said Debra Probert, the society's executive director. "It's not just an animal welfare problem, which obviously is our major concern, but it's also becoming a public danger issue."

Probert says she visited Primate Estate about three years ago, before the Bells had tigers. "It's just a disaster, it really is. The conditions those animals were being kept under were appalling."

Cody Bell told the Victoria Times Colonist last Monday that he and his mother were trying to "stay low" after a public debate began over whether private owners should be allowed to have exotic animals.

But less than a week later, the Bells found themselves recapturing their escaped tiger.