Ed the zebra has found his way back home.
Last week, a zebra who lived in Nashville took over social media when he escaped from his home and ran rampant all over the city. Ed escaped from his Rutherford County, Tennessee, home and was stopped running through the suburbs, alongside the street, and more. At one point, Ed’s escape even forced officials to shut down the interstate when the animal was spotted running down the busy highway.
Once the public began to see the zebra on the loose, the Rutherford Sheriff’s office asked people to please leave the zebra alone. The team was tracking the animal by drone to keep tabs on Ed’s whereabouts, but in a public statement, Sean White said:
“We don’t want to scare the zebra. We need time to get him to calm down.”
It turns out that Ed’s owners got the pet from a breeder in Texas and brought it home on Friday, just the day before it was reported missing. The owner believes that either the neighbors had messed with the animal or cattle had stomped on the fence to allow the zebra to escape.
Regardless of how the animal got loose, it’s stressful to have a large animal like that on the run. As someone who owns a horse, keeping animals like that is not cheap, and the thought of what kind of injuries the animal could come back with also adds stress to the situation.
Ed quickly became the center of many internet memes, and while a zebra on the loose is not ideal, I must admit the memes have provided some top-notch entertainment.
Thankfully, Ed’s wild run through the Nashville Metro area ended yesterday when he was captured and air-flew back to his home. Laura Ford, the zebra’s owner, said they brought outside help to capture Ed.
“We hired a team from Texas that was able to come up and capture him within an hour. He is safe and 100% healthy. This has been a long, stressful week, and I am so happy that it ended the way it did and no one got hurt.”
Leave it to the Texans to get it done.
Since Ed’s escape, of course, a lot of questions have arisen on social media. Can you have a pet zebra? Is this legal? How do you take care of a zebra? And more. It’s perfectly legal in Tennessee to own a zebra with the proper permits, if necessary. Zebras are considered a Class III species and regulated by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. (Fun fact: Other Class III species include kangaroos, camels, giraffes and bison).
I grew up outside Nashville, and a girl I did 4-H with owned a zebra. However, owning a zebra is not like owning a horse. Zebras are very hard to domesticate. Unlike horses, zebras lack a clear social hierarchy, which is very important for domestication. They are also naturally aggressive, which helps them survive in Africa among predators like lions and cheetahs, and they also have developed a natural ducking reflex that makes it hard to catch or lasso them.
So if you saw Ed out and about in Nashville and got an itch to live out your Racing Stripes dreams, you’re better off getting yourself a broke, safe horse. Ed, we are glad you made it home safely. Hopefully, he learned that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side from his time on the run.
