Washington 911 Caller Was Convinced Stuffed Tiger Was Real
— -- Go get ‘em tiger.
The caller seemed so matter-of-fact, but what he told a dispatcher on a newly released 911 call from near Camas, Washington, was anything but.
"I just came from Lacamas Lake and there’s a couple of guys in a dark truck. It has a Bengal tiger laying beside it," the caller told the dispatcher on the May 18.
"It was wagging its tail and they were rubbing its side," he said later in the call.
“The more I think about it, it seems pretty dangerous,” the caller added. “At first I thought, well it must be a big stuffed animal and then it started moving and it wasn’t stuffed.”
He should have gone with his first impulse. When authorities tracked down the tiger, it was, in fact, a stuffed animal.
Connor Zuvich, 19, told The Columbian newspaper that he was with friends when another driver dumped bags of trash, including a stuffed orange-and-black striped tiger. They got the idea to strap it to the top of Zuvich's car.
“The thing looked really realistic,” Zuvich told The Columbian. “We were just cruising around Lacamas Lake with it.”
Evidently, the stuffed tiger was realistic enough that it fooled the 911 caller as it sat next to Zuvich’s car before Zuvich and his friend tied it to the roof.
“This was a live tiger. This was a Bengal tiger,” the caller told dispatchers.
Zuvich did not return ABC News' calls requesting comment.
