Tiger in Collar Prowls Suburban Houston, Sparking Stand-Off With Armed Resident

A tiger caused panic in a suburban neighborhood when it was spotted prowling the streets outside Houston on Sunday night.

Footage of the animal, seen wearing a collar around the front yards of Fleetwood, was shared online by stunned neighbors who seemingly had no idea a tiger was living in their midst.

"Apparently there's a tiger loose on my parents' West Houston street?," Rob Wormald tweeted alongside a video of the animal casually prowling across front yards.

In the footage, the camera pans to show a man appearing to be holding a gun outstretched as he coaxes the tiger to safety.

"Get the f*** back inside!," a man's voice can be heard shouting. "F*** you and your f****** tiger."

Wormald shared a text message exchange with his mother over Twitter, providing an update as to the tiger's whereabouts.

"The cop with the gun is our good friend Wes," a message reply read. "He is a sheriff's deputy and lives in the neighborhood. He went to control the situation but apparently the tiger owner put the tiger in his suv and fled with the tiger."

"We were 30 mins earlier across the street with our neighbors celebrating Mother's Day. Probably 12/14 tasty kids of a tiger. We were literally 5 houses from where this was happening."

Speaking to Newsweek, Wormald said his parent's leafy suburban neighborhood would be "literally the last place on earth I would expect to find someone with a tiger."

"My parents (and literally dozens of people) probably walk by that backyard every day (it backs up the bayou) and nobody had any idea," he added. "Makes you wonder what else happens in the burbs."

His mother added: "Nobody knew about the tiger. I would have been the first to volunteer to look after it!"

In another video shared by Twitter user Michael Schwab around 11:30 p.m. GMT, a woman appears to be filming the scene from an upstairs window as the tiger approaches the man holding the gun.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh he's going to shoot it!" the woman is heard saying. "Why is there a tiger?!"

Another photo shared from the scene shows the tiger appearing to be held by the collar by a man as another gestures towards him to take the tiger inside the home.

A concerned neighbor reportedly called Houston Police to report the sighting.

Police confirmed to KHOU 11 that the incident was reported at about 8 p.m. GMT at a home on Ivy Wall Drive, near the intersection of Highway 6 and Memorial Drive.

A person later came out of a house and took the tiger back inside, the station said.

Another neighbor appeared to corroborate this account, tweeting: "Right after they brought it back inside they loaded it into an SUV and barrelled out of their driveway over the lawn and fled from the police."

It is illegal to have a tiger in the city of Houston and it remains unclear if any charges have been filed.

Newsweek has contacted Houston Police for comment.