Residents of one of Accra’s top-of-the-range gated communities have expressed fear about two wild tigers living among them.
A report published by Citi News indicates that residents have appealed to the young businessman to remove the wild animals from the estate but he is yet to grant them that request.
The residents say in many instances, their appeals have been met with hostility. PAY ATTENTION: Enjoy reading our stories? Join YEN.com.gh’s Telegram channel for more! One of the unhappy residents stated in the report attributed to the Daily Guide newspaper that apart from the danger of a possible attack on them, the animals stink. “Those animals are held inside an apartment where there is no access to proper fresh air. As soon as the door is open, you sniff a strong unpleasant smell emanating from them,” the resident, whose identity was being protected, told the Daily Guide.
Another resident also said: “They are opened early in the morning and then sent inside around 10am. They pee and poo on the floor. They also make noise which disturbs our sleep.” A third resident at the estate also said: “There are no tranquilisers nor any proper training. In the event of any unfortunate incident, no one knows what would happen to us.”
The animals have been living among them since November 2021, when they were just cute cubs, the residents recall. They said they had thought that the wild animals would be removed from the estate to an appropriate facility, but they were wrong.
“It doesn’t make any sense to have wild animals, tigers for the matter, in an estate in the heart of the city where there is just less than a meter between the houses and also without any proper training and care [for them],” one of the residents was quoted by the report. They also alleged that while trying to engage the owner to evacuate the animals, he rather built a structure for them right by the side of their apartment. “When we saw them building [the structure], we asked them which institution gave the authorisation for them to put up such structure for the animals in a residential area.
They told us they did not owe us any explanation and so will not provide any such authorisation to us. Even if they had any such authorisation, it only belonged to them,” the residents told the newspaper. Meanwhile, according to the report, a male resident once escaped an attack from one of the animals. Another resident is also alleged to have sustained some injuries as a result of an encounter she had with one of the tigers which left bruises on her feet.
“The residents also indicated that they reported the development to the Ghana Wildlife Society about a week ago, and were promised that the matter would be looked into but there has not been any positive feedback since. The residents continued that no official from the society had come to tell them anything but spotted some officials believed to be from the Society in the company of Nana Bediako on Sunday, May 15, 2022, in the estate.
Anytime we called to find out how far, they keep tossing us. We are told sometimes that the officials had traveled, and a lot of back and forth.
“They don’t tell us anything and that is the reason we intend reporting to the matter to the police if we don’t hear from Wildlife Society after some time.”
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