ILLINOIS police Saturday shot and killed a Bengal tiger that escaped from its owner as she was exercising the 180 kg animal on a leash at a roadside truck stop.

　　A veterinarian in the central Illinois town of Bloomington unsuccessfully tried to tranquilize the 2.4-meter-long tiger four times before police killed it.

　　Bloomington police spokesman Duane Moss said the animal was being transported in a wooden crate on a trailer pulled by a car with Texas license plates.

　　The car stopped at the Travel Centers of America truck stop at about 5:30 a.m. and the tiger escaped when it was let out on a leash to get some exercise.

　　Police were still questioning the tiger’s owner, an unidentified woman, and her son, and it was not immediately clear whether they would be detained or charged.

　　While the tiger was on the loose, about two dozen officers kept it corralled against a fence that separated the truck stop from a nearby residential area.

　　(SD-Agencies)