Hunt on for escaped lions, tigers in Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio, (Reuters) – Dozens of large exotic  animals including tigers, lions and bears were hunted down and  shot after their owner opened their cages at his Ohio farm and  then killed himself, officials said today.
The animals roamed off the property and one went as far as  an interstate highway after being let loose shortly before dark  on Tuesday near Zanesville in eastern Ohio. Authorities shut  down schools and warned residents to stay indoors as they  rounded up the wild beasts.
“We are not talking about your normal every day house cat  or dog. These are 300-pound Bengal tigers that we had to put  down,” said Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz. “I gave the  order … that if animals looked like they were on their way  out, they were put down.”
Lutz said 48 to 51 animals had been kept on the farm and  that only three — a grizzly bear, a mountain lion and a monkey  — remained unaccounted for by midmorning.
The farm was owned by Terry Thompson and authorities said  they had received about 35 calls in the past seven years about  the menagerie. Complaints ranged from animals running loose to  not being treated properly, Lutz said.
“We’ve handled numerous complaints here, we’ve done  numerous inspections here,” he said at a news conference. “So  this has been a huge problem for us for a number of years.”
Thompson was found dead from a self-inflicted wound when  authorities went to the farm Tuesday following reports of  animals running free, Lutz said. They found gates and animal  pens open when they arrived.
“There were animals running loose outside the fenced area,”  he said. Some, including primates, were secured on the farm.
Lutz said the animals kept at the farm included wolves,  grizzly and black bears and many types of “big cats” such as  cheetahs, mountain lions and leopards, in addition to lions and  tigers.
The sheriff said they tried to shoot some of the animals  with tranquilizer guns but encountered problems.
“We just had a huge tiger, an adult tiger that must’ve  weighed 300 pounds that was very aggressive,” Lutz said. “We  got a tranquilizer in it and this thing just went crazy.”
The tiger then had to be killed.
One bear attacked a law enforcement officer, Jack Hanna,  director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo, told ABC News earlier.
Another one — some type of big cat — wandered onto an  interstate highway and was hit by a vehicle, Lutz said.
Lutz said he issued a shoot-to-kill order Tuesday evening  and stationed officers on Interstate 70 about a mile west of  the Zanesville city limits to prevent animals from crossing.
“We were not going to have animals running loose off this  farm at night,” he told reporters.
Jack Hanna, Columbus Zoo director emeritus, told the news  conference Lutz and his deputies did the right thing.
“These are dangerous animals,” Hanna said. “He and other  people there are doing everything they can to capture the  animals humanely but these are dangerous animals.”