12/31/2023 0 Comments Gladys porter zoo employmentInstead, she locked herself in the cab of her truck. (She had twice before sold tiger cubs in the Rio Grande Valley, according to law enforcement officials.) If Ashton hadn’t refused to cooperate with McAllen police that day, she could have driven home a free woman. The woman selling tiger cubs at the McAllen Wal-Mart was Michelle Ashton, co-owner of the Spring Hill Wildlife Ranch in Calvert. Because owning and breeding tigers is legal, law enforcement often has no recourse. Rodriguez says private individuals in Mexico who want a tiger are fueling the demand. Now it’s mostly tigers and exotic cats bred in the United States being smuggled into Mexico. In the last four years, the trade has reversed. He says the exotic animal seizures on the border were once almost entirely birds and reptiles from Mexico. Fish and Wildlife Service, is in charge of prosecuting international animal smugglers along the border. The burgeoning tiger population has dangerous consequences for public safety - you could soon have a pet tiger living down the block - not to mention the health of animals forced to live in poor conditions.Īlejandro Rodriguez, a special agent with the U.S. One thing is certain: With so many exotic animals, Texas is running out of zoos and sanctuaries that will take animals that are abandoned or seized in illegal smuggling rings (you can’t take tigers across the border without proper permits). That means more captive tigers live in Texas than prowl in the wild in India. Some animal experts estimate at least 3,000 tigers in the Lone Star State. It’s nearly impossible to know how many tigers and other exotic animals live in Texas because no state or federal agency tracks the number of animals in private ownership. “It probably has the largest population of tigers in the country,” says Richard Farinato, a senior adviser with the Humane Society of the United States, “because there are a lot of animal breeders and a lot of animal dealers.” With such little oversight, animal experts and law enforcement officials say, the breeding and smuggling of exotic animals - tigers in particular - are booming in Texas. The few laws Texas does have are rarely enforced. Texas - which has almost no regulation of exotic animals - has always been a hotbed. The exotic animal trade is a billion-dollar industry. For $500, you can buy an orange Bengal tiger and tie it up in your yard, no questions asked (a white tiger will cost you $5,000). You might think it’s illegal to buy or sell an endangered tiger cub in Texas, but it isn’t. The tiger smugglers hadn’t committed a state crime. It turned out they were endangered Bengal tiger cubs (four white and two orange) bound for a private animal dealer in Mexico. Instead, he saw six tiny tiger cubs peering back at him. There were no bundles of cocaine, no kilos of marijuana. It was a high-pitched wail, like infants crying, coming from inside the Cherokee. He flashed the squad car lights, got out of his vehicle, and told the group not to move. Garcia followed them to another parking lot, this time outside a Mervyn’s department store. As he approached, the group scattered, ducked into their vehicles, and peeled out. Garcia drove closer for a better look through his binoculars. Five people were hurriedly transferring small blue crates to the jeep. He was watching three vehicles - two with Texas plates and a dark green Jeep Cherokee with Mexican plates - parked next to each other outside a McAllen Wal-Mart. It was early afternoon on June 15, and McAllen police officer Frank Garcia thought he was witnessing a drug deal.
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