SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- The tiger loose for nearly a week after seen roaming the streets of a Houston neighborhood has been moved to an animal sanctuary.
India, the 9-month-old Bengal tiger, will be introduced to acres of land at the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch in Murchison, Texas, Noelle Almrud, senior director of the sanctuary, told reporters at a press conference Sunday morning.
India will go into quarantine for 30 days before being introduced to a half-acre naturally wooded habitat with pool and trees, said Almrud.
The quarantine is to make sure India is not contagious and won't potentially give the other cats any diseases or viruses, but Almrud said India looks visually healthy and nothing appears to be wrong with him.
The saga to locate the missing Bengal tiger, named India, began on May 9 after users of the neighborhood social media platform Nextdoor began posting about sightings of the cat.
The tiger's alleged owner, 26-year-old Victor Cuevas, fled the scene with India in the vehicle just as police were arriving. He no longer had the tiger when police arrested him on May 9 and so the search began.
The cat escaped Cueva's property after climbing the fence, Cuevas' attorney, Michael Elliot, said after his court appearance on Friday.
India was located Saturday night after Cueva's wife contacted police and brought the tiger to BARC Houston, the city's animal shelter, Houston Police Department Cmdr. Ron Borza said at a press conference Saturday night.
Almrud said she hopes India will spend the rest of his life at Black Beauty Ranch and is grateful the big cat is no longer a house pet.
The sanctuary is home to nearly 800 domestic and exotic animals, including two other tigers who were found in recent years — one in Houston in 2019 and another in February in San Antonio.
The sanctuary is not open to the public on a regular basis, but it offers scheduled tours to educate people on why the animals come to the sanctuary.
