An intensive search for an escaped Bengal tiger in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, carried into Friday afternoon — two days after officials at the Quinta La Fauna zoo noticed the 100-kg feline was gone.
According to reports, the adult tiger managed to break out of its cage and jump over a wall more than 2 meters tall.
Aaron Misael de la Cruz Chavez, the director of environment and ecology for Reynosa, said zoo staff realized around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday that tiger had destroyed part of its mesh cage and was gone.
Zoo personnel called 911, and shortly thereafter, nearby residents were alerted to take shelter and avoid approaching the tiger — which is scared and probably trying to hide in undergrowth, de la Cruz said.
“It has not tried to attack anyone, but it is still a scared and large tiger,” he added. “We are taking all necessary precautions to capture the tiger without endangering the population.”
The search operation is being coordinated by officials from the Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection (Profepa), the State Guard, and various state and local animal welfare and public security agencies.
At 12:54 p.m. Friday, Profepa posted on the social media site X (and also issued a press release) that the search was continuing.
Reynosa Public Security Secretary Giovanni Barrios Moreno noted that U.S. authorities were notified to be on the lookout in case the tiger were to seek out the riverbanks on the border.
Quinta La Fauna, the zoological park whose security measures are now under scrutiny, announced Wednesday it would be closed until further notice.
According to Tamaulipas Public Security’s Facebook page, a 911 call on Thursday reported the sighting of a big cat in the northwest outskirts of Reynosa, about 1.5 km from the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Protocols are being carried out to evacuate students from a nearby school,” the Facebook post noted.
However, that sighting did not lead to a capture, as heavy vegetation in the area is making searching difficult.
The newspaper La Torre News reported Friday that, according to witnesses, the tiger was hunting a sheep — “indicating that it has activated its predatory instinct [and] refuting initial reports that claimed it only consumed cooked food. This change in its behavior has raised the level of danger for the population.”
The Bengal tiger, an endangered species, is typically between 2.5 to 3 meters long. It lives in tropical forests, swamps, grasslands and rocky areas, and can live up to 26 years.
The escape has been part of a busy week for Profepa. On Thursday, it announced on the social media site X that it had picked up a wild ringtail from a pet store in Mexico City. The cat was trapped by store employees after it was “caught stealing dog food,” according to a Profepa press release.
Earlier in the week, Profepa noted that it had captured an underweight jaguar with a fractured jaw in a forested area of Hidalgo.
Situations involving big cats are not uncommon in Mexico. In January, a lion cub was found wandering the streets of México state, and in June, a jaguar was caught on video in a residential area of Cancún.
Tigers are also known to appear from time to time. In 2022, one was on the loose in Guanajuato. Later that year, a cub was found in the trunk of a car in Querétaro.
With reports from Milenio, La Torre News, El Financiero and El Mañana
