A white tiger cub was found abandoned in the garbage in Athens. The Greek authorities are investigating the strange case of illegal wild animal smuggling into the country days by the Spata Police Department and the Pallini Region, following the complaint by the founder of the Attica Zoological Park, Jean-Jacques Lesueur, about the 4-month-old white tiger that was found thrown in the garbage of the park.

The animal has arrived in Greece illegally, while according to the park’s experts, it is disabled from the waist down.

As the founder of Attica Zoological Park reports on protothema.gr, the white tiger was spotted on the morning of last Tuesday, February 28 by the cleaning staff of the Municipality.

“The cleaning staff found an abandoned white cub under the garbage of the park last Tuesday morning. We were notified and we went and picked it up. The animal is not in good health at all. We immediately informed the police, the forest office, and the Pallini Region and until now no one knows either where it came from or how it got to that particular spot. The animal is unfortunately disabled, it is a baby of about 3 to 4 months, female. We have examined it and its condition is bad,” said the founder of Attica Zook Park.

Lesueur claimed that the owner of the animal must have abandoned it on Monday afternoon at that particular spot… “It was found in the place where we deposit the garbage outside the park. They must have left it last Monday, maybe mid-afternoon when there was still traffic. From the cameras we checked at night, it doesn’t appear that anyone passed and stopped at the scene, but the security guard didn’t see any strange movement either.”

According to the founder of the park, the animal was illegally smuggled into Greece, as after his own research on the internet there are sites that sell white tigers: “The person who got the animal in an illegal manner and brought it to Greece didn’t know how to raise it. Its bad condition is mainly due to malnutrition, as it hasn’t had the right vitamins, and milk, and it hasn’t had sun. On one of his legs, it seems that they tried to do a rough operation on him, but the main problem is that from the waist down the animal is disabled.”