The 500-pound Bengal tiger whose August escape from his pen caused Jungle Island vitors to flee for their lives is returning to the attraction on Wednesday.
The big cat, named Mahesh, has been sequestered in Myrtle Beach while his habitat received a makeover.
Mahesh will be placed in a reconstructed enclosure that now features a 20-foot-high fence, six feet higher than the one over which he made a leaping escape to chase a fellow escapee, a gibbon named Watson. In that incident, both animals were recaptured without the use of tranquilizers.
Several visitors were treated for minor injuries related to the pandemonium that ensued when Mahesh ran free about the park, but the tiger injured no one.
At the time of the incident, Mahesh' enclosure was of regulation height, but investigators found two feet of mulch piled on the inside effectively lowered the wall to an unaccaptable level.
Following an investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, park president Bern Levine was charged with two misdemeanors, and Mahesh's owner Bhagavan Antle with one misdemeanor count of maintaining captive wildlife in an unsafe condition.
Mahesh will not be alone in his newly fortified home. Joining him will be two new lady tigers (rawr!) and Jungle Island's liger -- that's part lion, part tiger -- Vulcan.
