Cryptomundo » Tijuana’s Mystery “African Lion”

Tijuana’s Mystery “African Lion”

Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 6th, 2008

I was hoping to have an update on this one before posting the account, this morning, but there doesn’t seem to be any followup in the last 24 hours.

The San Diego Union reported that on Wednesday, September 4th, 2008, Tijuana, Mexico, police are on the alert for an “African lion” sighted in a rural eastern area of the city near La Presa Dam.

The city dispatched its Pegasus helicopter to the area Wednesday after a resident called in a sighting to the police command center, said Ernesto Alvarez, a police spokesman. Police and wildlife inspectors were attempting to track the animal on Thursday, September 5th.

“We’re trying to determine if it’s a lion or if it’s a native species such as a puma or a mountain lion,” said Marco Antonio Campoy, who heads the Baja California natural resources branch of Mexico’s environmental watchdog agency, known as Profepa.

The city zoo in Morelos Park does not have lions.

A lion — the African type — might have come from a clandestine zoo (unspoken but as sometimes kept by drug dealers) in the city. Or perhaps it was from a traveling circus, officials said, bringing up that old chestnut. “We’re not ruling out either possibility,” Campoy told San Diego Union reporter Sandra Dibble on Thursday afternoon.

At least, there was not a circus train wreck mentioned as an explanation.

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14 Responses to “Tijuana’s Mystery “African Lion””

busterggi responds: September 6th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Reading this story made me realize that one of the most reported “cryptids” is one that no one is searching for - the traveling circus.

In my 50+ years there’s only been one that played in my town and they had no lions.

Where are all these reported but never identified circuses?
cryptidsrus responds: September 6th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Hopefully more information will come out soon. More sightings maybe??? I do agree that the “traveling circus” explanation is an “oldie but goodie,” like “otter” and “basking shark.”
sausage1 responds: September 6th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
The Magnificent Biscardi Brothers run a travelling circus filled to the brim with exotic and dangerous wild animals, and they will release details of when and where you can see it when the time is right.
Artist responds: September 6th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
busterggi: ‘Where are all these reported but never identified circuses?’

Well, according to Wikipedia, here?
Spinach Village responds: September 6th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
The drug dealer thing makes me laugh …. lol, has anyone ever heard of that mentioned in any hip hop songs?

…. it seems to me that if drug dealers sometimes have lions that we would have heard more about it by now … unless we are talking serious kingpin stuff from South America

lol, it seems to me that zoos and circus’s get to fly under the radar alot more than singular owners … but seriously i dont think it came from those sources….

of course it could be a cougar since they kind of resemble female lions … the kicker question is… did it have a mane?
cliffhanger042002 responds: September 6th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Busterggi - I’m in bama and I’ve never seen or heard of any of these small traveling circus’ either. Only Barnum & Bailey’s when it comes to the civic center in B’ham. I just always assumed it was the small very rural areas where the train came through with all the animals like they show sometimes on tv, lol.
red_pill_junkie responds: September 6th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Look, owning a lion in Mexico is incredibly easy. Take this news for instance (sorry, it’s in Spanish).

It tells of a man that was killed by an African lion and a Bengal tiger, which were held in a cage on the roof top of a pet food store in the neighborhood of Iztapalapa, Mexico city.

I could tell you other stories too. Once a neighbor of mine had a lion as a pet, which escaped and Boy! was that a hilarious experience (fortunately, it was still a juvenile).

Also, when I was in college, one of the students brought a young cub to the school. It was a real incredible/astounding moment, because you wouldn’t expect such an exotic animal to be held like a dog or a cat.

Very recently my nephew told me of this schoolmate of his who keeps tigers on the family ranch.

You have to understand that the law is very mild and ineffective on this issue, and that importing these animals is not exactly restricted.

Maybe in 50 years the largest populations of lions will not be in Africa, but in Mexico!
mystery_man responds: September 7th, 2008 at 4:19 am
red_pill_junky- Thanks for sounding off on this one! I was wondering if you were going to be so kind as to tell us your opinion from over there in Mexico, your neck of the woods. What you said is pretty much as I thought. I heard that many illegal animals are easy to get a hold of and keep there, and that the laws concerning the trade in these animals are lax and not heavily enforced. Is there any crackdown on this sort of thing at all over there?

As for the traveling circus thing, I’ll have to go with busterggi and cliffhanger on this one. I know they are around, but I’m not so sure they are ubiquitous to the point that they can be relied upon as the culprit for as many cryptid and out of place animal reports as they are. Remember the explanation of Nessie caused by escaped circus elephants? Hogwash. I’m at the point where I groan when I here the old circus explanation. I’m a skeptic, but come on, surely there are better, more plausible sources for an escaped animal than traveling circuses. Now that I think of it, do we have any credible evidence that these traveling circuses even exist? Kidding. Anyway, if traveling circuses are the problem, then they sure are losing a lot of animals.

My first guess would be an illicit zoo, or an illegal exotic pet. Unfortunately if that is the case, it is probably going to be tough to ever figure out where exactly it came from since no one is likely to come forward about it.
red_pill_junkie responds: September 7th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Is there any crackdown on this sort of thing at all over there?

Hi mystery_man,

No, currently the authorities are so immersed in so many pressing matters (which would be off the topic in this discussion, let’s just say citizens feel less secure with each passing day) that issues like the trade of exotic animals is often overlooked.

In Mexico city, close to the downtown, there’s a famous market known as “El Mercado de Sonora” (renown for the sale of “esoteric & magic products” used by the brujos), where you can find all sorts of illegal exotic animals: snakes & lizards, toucans & other endangered birds, monkeys, coatís, crocodiles, maybe even some large felid. You name it, it’s probably there.

The protection of the ecosystems is definitely at the bottom of the “To Do” list of the government. Just search for satellite photos of the Monarch butterfly’s sanctuaries in Michoacán, to see the devastation provoked by illegal loggers
kittenz responds: September 7th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Spinach Village,

Big cats (and other, often dangerous and/or rare exotic animals) are confiscated in drug busts all the time. Just visit the websites of Big Cat Rescue, the Carnivore Preservation Trust, the Gladys Porter Zoo, or any of dozens of other zoos and sanctuaries, to see photos of animals that have been confiscated, and read about the details of the busts.

Animal smuggling is a multi-billion dollar business - second only to illegal drug smuggling in terms of revenue.
mystery_man responds: September 7th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Kittenz is absolutely correct. The illegal trade in animals is thriving, and the impact goes beyond just the mistreatment these animals are subjected to. The ecosystems of the animal’s native habitat can suffer do to the depletion of very often rare creature’s, and the ecology of the animal’s new home can suffer when they escape. Some countries have very serious problems with introduced, invasive species and a big source of these are released or escaped pets. These can not only affect the native fauna, but can end up costing considerable long term economic problems as well, something often overlooked or unable to be predicted.

Red_pill_junky- Thanks for that info. That’s pretty much as I thought. It’s sad that the enforcement of laws against the illegal exotic animal trade often take back seat to other problems. Here in Japan, there has been more of an effort by the government in recent days to crack down on the trade of certain blacklisted species, but it is so lucrative that people are finding ways to smuggle them in anyway. It’s amazing the lengths people are willing to go to sneak these animals in.
eireman responds: September 9th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Maybe not circuses but let us not discount private - and often illegal - menageries or petting zoos. One has only to turn on Animal Cops on Animal Planet to see things like this. If they’re mistreating them, they’re probably not keeping a watchful eye on them either. My thought is this: If it weren’t for the fact that exotic pets are a ubiquitous phenomenon, then it would seem there was a case for the mysterious presence of African lions, etc… in places where they aren’ known to exist. But ask yourself, are you saying that there have been for many generations a breeding population of lions (the mountain variety aside) living throughout North America? I think the more logical explanation - assuming the witnesses can be believed - is that of escaped or released pets or zoo specimens (but certainly not by any reputable zoo). To me, these are not cryptids. These are very well known animals, which have (somewhat) controlled populations here in North America, that are occasionally seen roaming about. I mean, escapes have to happen. Every other animal in captivity manages to escape at some point (well, maybe not fish…). Most of the time, they are rounded up because it is an expensive, dangerous, valuable animal. But when backyard bubba has an emaciated pet lion in a pen out back of his farm next to his field of pot, do you really think he’s going to phone the sheriff for some help on this one? And that’s the kind of people you run across in newspaper stories, etc… who were fined or even arrested for having illegal pets.
mystery_man responds: September 9th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
eireman- Right. Exactly my points I mentioned. In this case the most likely culprit in my opinion is an illicit zoo or an escaped or released exotic pet. And the chances of the person ever coming forward about it are low. I don’t think anyone here has discounted that at all. As far as lions go, I would also say it is highly unlikely that they would establish a secret breeding population. But there have been escaped or released pets that HAVE established populations. For example feral dogs in many places, or raccoons in Japan, which are the result of released pets following a raccoon pet fad. There are many examples. However, I did not mean to imply that this is the case with African lions. I do not mean to say that at all. My intention was to illustrate that the exotic pet trade can have unforeseen, undesirable effects on native ecologies and that these animals can sometimes gain a foothold in places where they should not be. Not the case with lions in North America I would say, but a sad picture of the pet trade from which some of these lions originate.
jtm_kryptos responds: September 10th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
ok i just want to say that loren colemans idea of atrox in the book mysterious america? if the ceolacanth can survive 65 million years what can you say about a large lion surviving for only like 1/2 a million years or less? Loren coleman put this theory out back on mysterious america, and i still love it! how can you not like the atrox? i mean how else can you explain the sightings of a large lion and an over sized BLACK puma with 2 cubs hanging out in the usa?

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