In the wake of the horrific tiger escape resulting in one death and two injuries at the San Francisco Zoo, zoos around the country are examining their tiger exhibit set-ups. Tiger Mountain at the Bronx Zoo has the following set-up, per the Post:Tiger Mountain is surrounded by a moat about 10 feet wide and is enclosed by a fence that is 15 feet high and has a five-foot overhang. That means that the last......

Let this be a lesson to all of us: The police can enter your home without a warrant if there's a tiger living in it. And they can probably enter your home sans warrant if there's an alligator, too. We know this because a judge tossed out Antoine Yates' lawsuit against the city; Yates claimed his constitutional rights were violated when the search warrant-less police entered his Harlem apartment to remove his tiger, Ming, and......

Gothamist's favorite law-breaking animal lover, Antoine Yates, was sentence to five months in prison and five year probation for keeping illegal pets, most notably a 400 pound Bengal tiger and an alligator, in his Harlem apartment. Yates pleaded guilty, in exchange for having child endangerment charges dropped against his 68 year-old mother (her children would visit the apartment-turned-zoo). Yates' lawyer feels the charges were due to race and said, "If his mother had been Martha......

Even though it's been more than six months when we first heard about this story, New Yorkers cannot get enough of hearing about Antoine Yates and Ming, the tiger he kept in his Harlem apartment. The Post reports that Ming has been put in "solitary confinement" at the Ohio animal sanctuary he's been living in, because he hasn't been getting along with the other tigers. Yates, who was charged with reckless endangerment, said, "In Harlem,......

Sometimes Gothamist thinks that more people than we suspect secretly hide issues of Cat Fancy in between Time Out and The New Yorker when not obsessing over their cats. We like to keep track of stories like the ones below to help build our case: - A Long Island (okay, not strictly NY - but the story is good) neighborhood was filled with police officers, search dogs, and police helicoptor looking for an African serval......

I've always loved animals. I just moved into a new apartment, and there's no limit on pets. How many is too many? Teresa, Queens Gothamist can sympathize; when we go to the Union Square Petco, we always want to bring all the cats home. But, alas, New York City apartments only have so much space. A friend suggested a ratio of one pet per person, which seems reasonable. We know from experience that 3 cats......

The things one sees in Central Park. Staten Island resident Victor Alexandria was strolling around the Heckesher Playground, but caught people's attention with his company: a three-foot caiman alligator on a leash, 6 foot Burmese python in a bag, and a cockatiel on his shouler. Naturally, a concerned citizen called the police, who approached Alexandria with animal control. Alexandria claimed he was just walking through the park with his wife and kids, but police......

It's not a new year until there's a story about Antoine Yates, the Harlem man who managed to keep a tiger (and an alligator) in his apartment until the tiger mauled him and police found the 250 big cat lounging around. The Daily News reports that authorities are claiming that eight chidren lived alongside the tiger and alligator, in an effort to charge Yates and his mother with reckless endangerment. Apparently Martha Yates raised eight......

New York's favorite and only admitted tiger (and alligator) haborer, Antoine Yates was in court yesterday, to seek an adjournment of the charges against him for illegally owning and sheltering a variety of animals. Yates, whose Harlem apartment turned animal farm caught attention in early October, was dressed jauntily ("wearing a bowler hat and black suit") and mentioned missing his beloved tiger Ming. He said, "It's not my leg, it's my heart," dismissing the......

The "Tiger Lady" of Jackson Township, NJ, Joan Byron-Marasek, (the Garden State's precursor of Antoine Yates, Harlem resident and tiger owner) has lost the 24 tigers that would roam her 13-acre Tigers Only Preservation Society compound. After five years of battling with NJ state wildlife agency (especially after a 1999 incident where a 430 tiger found roaming NJ backwoods had to be shot; Byron-Marasek never confirmed it was hers), Byron-Marasek's tigers are going to......

The Daily News tours the urban apartment zoo of Antoine Yates. the man behind such escapades as "these tiger-sized bite marks are from a dog" and "teaching the NYPD how to get a tiger out of a Harlem apartment." The Housing Authority has successfully evicted Yates from his five bedroom apartment (five?) and gave him time to clear out. The DN reports that it smelled like a rancid pet store. He tells the DN......

Perhaps because alligators seem natural in New York (who hasn't wondered if there was an alligator in the sewer beneth their feet), Ming the Tiger, the illegal Harlem resident, got all the media attention, whereas Al the Alligator got very little love. The Times ponders this issue as well as what has happened with Al since being kicked out of the squat. James Doherty, the general curator of the Bronx Zoo, says that the alligator......

Animal lover and only known New Yorker to have had both a tiger and an alligatory animal in apartment, Antoine Yates, says he misses his tiger Ming. Even though Ming mauled him, Yates told reporters, "It's the pain in my heart that's really bothering me. It's like a part of me just left. I really do miss him." Which leads many to think Ming's new residence in Ohio is unfair to Yates. His sister-in-law says,......

If you have ever complained about how tiny your NYC apartment is, think about the poor, poor 400 pound tiger cooped up in a Harlem apartment building. Police removed the 400 Bengal-Siberian tiger, Ming, from the apartment of Antoine Yates yesterday, calling in a police officer who needed to be rappelled down the building, in order to shoot the tiger with a tranquilizer gun. Also found in the apartment: A caiman alligator named Al.......