Tiger roams free in Florida
A 600-pound tiger was still on the loose today in the Florida town of Loxahatchee after escaping a day earlier from the home of an actor who played Tarzan in 1960s movies.
Police and state game officials said the cat had eluded capture even though it had only roamed about yards from his home.
The tiger was reported missing yesterday afternoon from the home of Steve Sipek, who played Tarzan under the screen name Steve Hawkes in movies made in the late 1960s, said Paul Miller, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
Sipek has raised the tiger since it was a cub.
Deputy sheriffs and state game officials set up a perimeter around a search area that was a half-mile wide and 2.5 miles long, and started searching again at daybreak, said Willie Puz, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Officials hoped the six-year-old tiger would simply grow hungry and return home in search of food, he said.
When the first deputies arrived on the scene, the cat jumped on top of their car, Miller said. Puz said searchers on the ground spotted the cat several times into the evening, but were never close enough to shoot it with tranquilliser darts.
Sipek has another tiger, two lions, a black leopard and a cougar on his property, the Palm Beach Post reported.
The cats, mostly castoffs from zoos, are usually kept in a mazelike series of interlocking cages.
The five-acre property is about 15 miles west of Palm Beach.
In February 2002, a 750-pound tiger mauled a woman who was helping Sipek during a photo shoot at his compound. She was bit on the head.
