An escaped pet zebra that went on the lam in Tennessee was captured Sunday after gamboling in the forest for more than a week.
During its eight days of freedom, “Celebrity Zebra Ed” paced cars alongside an interstate, shutting it down for hours on Saturday, May 31 as it ran back and forth before disappearing into the woods. One woman reported seeing Ed crossing her backyard, sending the neighbors’ children into a tizzy, she told WKRN-TV.
In the following days, social media became filled with videos of Ed trotting around town, one of them caught on a home surveillance camera. Reams of memes followed, in fake posts of Ed frequenting local businesses, dining at a Waffle House, panhandling, and checking out the donut scene. The attention inevitably launched Ed onto the global stage.
“He became an international sensation through social media memes throughout the country,” the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office said in a media release. “Drivers on Interstate 24 watched him scampering across the highways in both the eastbound and westbound lanes Saturday. He escaped into a wooded area and disappeared until being spotted Thursday.”
Owners Taylor and Laura Ford of Christiana, about 40 miles southeast of Nashville, had bought Ed and a female companion from Texas breeders, they told WSMV-TV. Ed wasted no time making a run for it. The day after his arrival, he was gone. The other zebra was taken to a horse stable so the couple could focus on finding Ed, they told the outlet.
AP
Ed the zebra is caught on a home surveillance camera during his eight days on the loose. (AP)
The sheriff’s office began tracking Ed by drone, then tried to bait him with alfalfa after locating him in a field. But he didn’t bite, WTVF-TV reporter Nick Beres wrote Friday in an update on social media. They then set up trail cameras to continue monitoring the zebra as it moved through the area. They also contacted the Texas company that had sold Ed to the Fords, which sent personnel and a helicopter.
On Sunday, the sheriff’s drone spotted Ed in a pasture near a subdivision not far from the highway. The Texas animal wranglers scooped the zebra into a net and airlifted him to a waiting trailer. Ed the Celebrity Zebra became “zebra in a bag,” as a voice could be heard saying in video of the rescue released by the sheriff’s office.
Ed’s adventure was not the longest an escaped zebra has ever roamed. That distinction may go to two zebras that roamed free for four months in 2021 after escaping from an exotic animal farm in Maryland.
With News Wire Services
