A tiger has been filmed on the prowl in a neighbourhood in the US city of Houston.
The Bengal tiger was spotted lying on a front yard, causing an alarmed neighbour to call the police.
According to officers, the caller reported that neighbours were “starting to show up with guns”. At one point the caller said the tiger was staring at them.
Footage posted on Twitter shows a man pointing a gun at the animal and backing away as it slowly walks towards him. The man did not appear to fire any shots during the 40-second video of last night’s incident.
Apparently there's a tiger loose on my parents' West Houston street? pic.twitter.com/TgdIiPSPKx
— robwormald (@robwormald) May 10, 2021
The caller told police that the tiger “had a collar around its neck” and was “looking aggressive,” the Houston Chronicle reported.
Police said someone identified as a suspect pulled up in a white Jeep Cherokee and took off with the animal before they showed up.
The Netflix series Tiger King has drawn attention to the issue of tigers being kept in captivity in the US, where it is said there are as many of the animals as there are left in the wild.
According to some estimates, there are about 3,900 tigers remaining in the wild and as many as 5,000 in captivity across America.
