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By Lisa Spear
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A tiger cub that animal smugglers abandoned in a duffel bag on the U.S. border in Texas is settling into a new home.
The animal landed Thursday night at In-Sync Exotics, an animal sanctuary in Wylie, Texas, which is northeast of Dallas. Border patrol agents rescued the cub in April while patrolling along the Rio Grande near Brownsville, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency reported.
Border agents spotted three people trying to enter the country illegally, when they discovered the cub in a black duffel bag along the river.
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In a statement, the agency said that the men were attempting to smuggle the animal into the country. Agent Robert Rodriguez told the Associated Press that the tiger seemed calm and might have been sedated.
Authorities placed the tiger at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville temporarily until they could find a permanent home.
The agency did not mention what subspecies of tiger the animal was. There are generally thought to be eight subspecies of tiger, three of which are now extinct. The remaining subspecies include the Bengal, Indo-Chinese, South China, Amur and Sumatran tigers, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Illegal killing, dwindling food supplies and loss of habitats led to the extinction of the Bali, Javan and Caspian subspecies, and continue to threaten the tiger populations that remain.
According to National Geographic, the illegal animal trade is booming, and as a result more people are smuggling animals across the border from Mexico.
Last year, border patrol agents stopped smugglers who were carrying 25 parrots.
More than 25 percent of the 50,000 illegal shipments of wildlife and wildlife products seized at ports of entry from 2005 through 2014 were from Latin America, according to a 2016 fact sheet from Defenders of Wildlife, the Washington, D.C.-based conservation organization. That included nearly 55,000 live animals.
Alejandra Goyenechea, senior international counsel for Defenders of Wildlife, told National Geographic that this is "just the tip of the iceberg. We cannot imagine how much more is happening that we haven't caught."
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