Cat News: Man Fights To Keep His Garden Lion

A Frenchman has been arrested after threatening to commit suicide if police confiscated the 14-month-old lion he was keeping in his garden.

Anthony Crapet has been keeping Ciam, a 14-month-old male lion in his garden in the town of Poussan, southern France, for the last seven months and insists he is no danger.

Anthony lives with his two young children and claims that the 140kg lion was a gift from a circus manager, which he has hidden in a wire cage in his garden.

A scared neighbour alerted police and now the man faces the likely prospect of having his animal confiscated, French newspaper Midi Libre reported.

In France individuals are forbidden by law to keep wild animals as pets.

At the weekend officers turned up with the intention of taking away the animal, but after a four-hour stand-off, police ended up leaving empty handed.

It didn’t help the situation that Anthony threatened to take his own life.

“I don’t want them to take Ciam away. When I took him in, he was all skinny, you could see his ribs. I can do what I like with him, I stroke him. He eats, he’s happy,” Anthony told Midi Libre newspaper.

“Does he look aggressive to you? Not at all. I play with him. I stroke him. He’s mine,” he said.

Guy Deldem, who is a member of a local veterinary association said: "It’s neither a cat nor a dog. It’s a wild animal that’s not designed to live with a man communally. He needs to look into the future: this beast will remain a cat that behaves like a wild animal,” he added.

On Tuesday police returned and arrested the man and took him into custody. Authorities also took away his lion with the help of animal rights groups.

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