A mom from Texas is in hot water again for allegedly illegally transporting a jaguar cub to California and selling the wild animal for $25,000 last year. According to court documents filed on September 15, California officials found the jaguar cub abandoned.
The U.S. District Court filed charges for the Central District of California against Trisha Denise Meyer, who hails from Houston. This is not the first time the 40-year-old has been tied to endangering wildlife. According to MySA, Harris County police found a cougar, a skunk, a fox, and three tigers in the home that housed Meyer's 14-year-old daughter in 2016.
For that 2016 case, cops said Meyer had permits for the tigers but none for the foxes and skunks. Meyer was charged back then with endangering a child, but her case was dismissed amid a guilty plea to theft, which involved defrauding a woman of money related to the sale of the exotic feline, Savannah cat.
Meyer sold the jaguar between April and September last year
According to court documents first pulled by the Daily Beast, the alleged illegal transfer that transpired in 2021 showed Meyer was charged with a felony and two misdemeanors, including trafficking prohibited wildlife and interstate sale of an endangered species.
Meyer reportedly sold the jaguar between April 17, 2021, and September 17, 2021, to Southern California car dealer Abdul Rahman, Meyer's co-defendant. During the state's nearly year-long investigation, officers revealed how Rahman became dissatisfied and wanted to get rid of the jaguar cub by selling it to someone else after only having the animal for two months.
Rahman identified Meyer in photo lineup
Rahman sold the cub to a couple living in California for $20,000. The woman of the couple that Rahman sold the cub to was pregnant, though, and she feared having a jaguar around a newborn baby. Given his partner's concerns, the man who bought the jaguar cub from Rahman decided to drop off the exotic animal on the doorstep of a wildlife rescue on September 17.
Rahman admitted to investigators that he bought the jaguar from Meyer. He sent screenshots of the transaction to them in August. According to the complaint, he also identified Meyer in a "six-pack" photo lineup as the person who sold him the live jaguar.
The investigation is still ongoing, and officials are asking anyone with information on the whereabouts of Meyer to contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) at (281) 687-0682 or by clicking on the FWS website the "Report a Wildlife Crime" link.
According to Defenders of Wildlife, jaguars are the largest cat in the Western Hemisphere. They are the only one of the world's five big cats that reside in the Americas. They thrive in various environments, from tropical forests to open grasslands and even rugged terrain.
