Search Exotic Incidents Database

MILFORD, MI – People in a Milford neighborhood lassoed their neighbor’s pet gator when they found it tromping across their yard after it made an escape.

The owner of the 4-foot-long gator named Puff took it back home. The alligator had a small harness around the front of his body, with a broken wire attached. Police were able to reach the owner, who was at a Madison Heights water park with his family, and he arrived about an hour later, taping the alligator’s mouth shut and carrying him home.

A woman and her child are reportedly in the hospital Sunday morning after being attacked by an exotic cat.

Residents said the large cat was walking down the sidewalk when it attacked the child. The child’s mother intervened and was able to distract the animal. A police sergeant on the scene says the cat is a Caracal that escaped from a nearby home. Police located the owner and issued multiple ordinance violations.

Officials on the scene say the animal lunged at animal control and police, who put the cat down with a single shot.

The woman and her child are now reportedly being treated for puncture wounds and scratches.

The antics of an escaped Capuchin monkey named Teeko made for an unusual early morning at a small truck stop in Ohio yesterday. Five year old Teeko escaped from the home of his owner Anthony Thomas in Braceville Township, Ohio, on the evening of Sunday, June 8th. Teeko was spotted next on Monday, June 9th, around 6:40 a.m. by a truck driver in the parking lot at the Marathon on Braceville Robinson Road. The monkey was spotted running between semi trucks and baring its teeth in an aggressive manner.

The first alligator was found, sunning itself on a trail near the Monongahela River on May 18, the 3-foot reptile was a novelty. The second one, was found by a man walking his dog in the Beechview neighborhood on June 6, seemed like an odd coincidence. That gator, about 5 feet long and hissing with apparent ill humor, was captured with considerable perplexity and exertion by several officers. When a third gator was found two days later—a 2½-footer lounging on a front porch in the Carrick district—the police were astounded.

“This needs to stop,” said Chris Togneri, a police spokesman, citing a threat to children and pets. “We don’t need alligators in Pittsburgh.” The police believe the three recent discoveries were pets that escaped or were let loose.

When the Hays County Constable’s Office first started getting calls about a kangaroo on the loose in Wimberley, they assumed it was a joke.  But as more and more residents reported sightings of a tan, male kangaroo in their backyards and even on their front porches, it became clear that the tiny Texas Hill Country town had an AWOL marsupial on their hands.

The kangaroo, it turns out, escaped from Trails End Ranch, an exotic wildlife ranch on the town’s outskirts, on Wednesday. Owner Roy Dale told KVUE that he thought his gates would keep the kangaroo on his property while he was out of town this week, but the curious ‘roo hopped right over.

A Bengal tiger named Bowie attacked a nonprofit animal rescue’s founder in northwestern Arizona and will not be put down after the man said it was his fault.

Keepers of the Wild, located in Valentine, Arizona, confirmed in a statement posted Wednesday that Jonathan Kraft suffered multiple wounds and two broken bones when a Bengal tiger pushed an open gate and attacked. Kraft was working to protect animals from heavy rain, lightning and hail during a storm Monday when the attack occurred. Kraft took the blame for what he called an “accident” and said “these situations occur when there is human error.”

“I was concerned for his welfare and did not stay focused on him,” Kraft said. “It only takes a fraction of a second for a captive wild animal to revert to their instinctual behavior.”

A wolf hybrid at Zoo’Opolis Exotic Petting World has been quarantined by county health officials after two people were injured at the facility over the Easter weekend, one of them a 9-month-old baby girl. Lucas Huff was visiting the facility with his wife and two sons, ages 4 and age 2, his in-laws, and a brother and sister-in-law who brought their 9-month old daughter Renea Robinson. “The organization’s members were keeping this animal (the wolf hybrid) in the basement of the house on the property and were allowing their guests to freely interact with it. No member of the staff present made any objections,” Huff said.

A beautiful spring morning at the Topeka Zoo in Kansas turned tragic Saturday when a male Sumatran tiger attacked a keeper, inflicting wounds that sent her to a hospital. Although keepers are never supposed to be in the same space as the tigers, they found themselves together in the outdoor habitat that morning for reasons under investigation.

“There’s some sort of error that occurred here,” said Brendan Wiley, the zoo’s director, who spoke at a news conference Saturday afternoon. He confirmed that several visitors to the zoo had witnessed the attack. The employee is the zoo’s primary tiger keeper and had worked there for years. He said that the keeper was in stable condition and that the zoo was reviewing its safety protocols.

The zookeeper, suffered “lacerations and punctures” to the back of the head, neck, back and arm. She was awake and alert when she was transported to a hospital.

A large exotic cat that escaped its home and was later captured by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is now living at a local wildlife sanctuary. The cat jumped from the owner’s apartment balcony and into a neighbor’s yard. It was loose for several days before being captured.

Multnomah County Animal Services said the cat is actually a caracat, a hybrid between a caracal and domestic cat, which are illegal to own. Officials said the owner voluntarily turned the cat over to Wildcat Ridge Sanctuary in Scotts Mills.

An Alachua man is dead after he was attacked by an exotic bird he was keeping on his property. Alachua County sheriff’s deputies say the 75-year-old was breeding the rare birds, a Cassowary. The man was killed inside the bird’s pen when he was trying to retrieve an egg from one of the birds, and the bird attacked. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed to TV20 that there is no permit required to breed cassowaries in Florida. Cassowaries are classified as Class II Wildlife, which means that they pose a danger to people. The future of the two breeding pairs of birds, which remain on the property, will be decided by the family.