Tiger on Loose in Packard Plant Causes Uproarious Social Media Fun

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British photographer David Yarrow’s location shoot at Detroit’s historic Packard Plant went wrong Monday when a live tiger briefly escaped.

Yarrow neglected to tell Kari Smith, project manager for the Packard Plant Project, that he planned to bring exotic animals – a bobcat and a pair of wolves were also reportedly on site as well – so she kicked the lot of them out.

“We arranged for a photography group of humans to be on site for two days,” Smith told the Detroit Free Press. “We never approved any animals being on the site, and we had the matter taken care of in the first hour. ...”

By “taken care of,” Smith means that the tiger was captured after it holed up in a fourth-story stairwell.

Predictably, social media went wild.

Andy Didorosi, 28, told the Free Press he got a call from a buddy who wanted him to help capture the tiger.

“He asked me if I had a leaf blower, and I said I had a weed whacker, so he told me to bring that. ... I stopped what I was doing, grabbed my tools and hopped in my truck, because, you know, tiger. …

“I don’t know much about tiger logistics, but we were told to be this huge blue tarp monster with the weed whacker and try to be scary and make loud noises,” Didorosi said. “That just made him angry. You could say he got tiger rage, so we retreated.”

You can’t make that up. Here’s a video.

And here’s some of the response:

“A tiger, two wolves, a bobcat, a photographer and a guy with a weedwacker walk into the #packardplant…what could happen? #TigerWatch15,” tweeted Mark Graf @grafnaturephoto.

Also on Patch:

• First Pig Roundup, Now Goat Roping for Police
• Has Metro Detroit Gone to the Pigs?
• Pig Goes Hog Wild, Ends Up in Pokey
• Officers Didn’t Have a Tiger By the Tail After All

Trainers eventually coaxed the cat, which came from Bozeman-based Animals of Montana, back into a cage.

Smith told MLive.com that Yarrow’s crew claimed they had received a permit from the city of Detroit to have animals on site, but that doesn’t matter. And she’s not refunding the site rental fee, either.

“This is not something that we would allow to happen here,” she said. “This is not something that we condone in any way.”

Didorosi, a local entrepreneur, says the whole thing should never have happened.

“People think it’s OK to bring super dangerous animals into the city without alerting the authorities because they think people don’t care, because they think it’s a cesspool and that they can do whatever (they) want,” Didorosi told the Free Press. “That is not cool.”

» Get more reaction to the tiger roundup below.