The owner of two tigers is facing an order to remove them from his property in Wainfleet, Ont., by Monday.
Zohaib Masood, who has been keeping two sub-adult tigers on his former mushroom farm in the southern Niagara Region township since last fall, approached Wainfleet’s town council this week looking for an exemption to its exotic animal bylaw that expressly forbids people from keeping tigers.
“The obvious fear is what happens if these animals escape,” Mayor Brian Grant said Friday.
“He’s in a residential area. We’re talking homes everywhere, so that’s obviously our No. 1 concern.”
Wainfleet doesn’t have staff that can deal with escaped tigers, Grant said.
“We don’t have the resources to handle a situation like that,” he said. “Heaven forbid there’s a fire on the property and our fire department has to go there to put out a fire or something like that and one of these animals is escaping.”
Some fences are 16 feet high, and another area has 13-foot-high fences with a three-foot lean in, Masood said Saturday, noting they have three-foot rebars going into the ground.
The owner said he “never” witnessed the tigers showing an interest in escaping.
“We had perimeter fencing, four feet out. And to get to them, there were at least four doors that you had to open up and unlock,” Masood said.
“So, there were a lot of safety protocols…. We went above and beyond to make sure they were safe and to follow zoo guidelines on that.”
Masood still hadn’t nailed down a place Saturday to take the tigers.
“That I’m just trying to figure out at the moment,” he said. “I’ve got a few options, but I just haven’t decided where to put them…. I am working on it to make sure that they’re going to be safe and sound.”
Masood was quite sure he’d be able to find somewhere to keep the tigers.
“If not, I’ll come to your house and drop them off,” he said, with a chuckle.
Masood said the tigers were rescued from people in Ontario who obtained them as pets but then couldn’t handle the animals.
“The novelty is like, oh my god, it’s a cute little baby, but they don’t realize the time and effort and understanding that goes into it, and they just give them away, you know?”
The tigers are hybrids of Bengal and Siberian cats, Masood said.
When he brought Jagger and Aspen to Wainfleet last fall, he hoped to set up a sanctuary for them on his property.
Masood said he’s rescued other exotic animals, including a lion he saved in recent years from the North Bay area that was being kept in a shed. “It’s been a huge passion for me.”
Jagger weighs about 350 pounds and Aspen about 250, he said.
“They’re just a year old, so they will get bigger,” Masood said. “They can weigh up to 500 pounds, fully grown, 600 pounds, the males.”
Masood said he had no plans to make his Wainfleet tiger retreat accessible to the public. “There was no public allowed and there was no profit,” he said of the “self-funded” project. “It was solely just for these guys to be happy-go-lucky and to enrich their lives and rescue them, you know?”
Masood said setting up the retreat in Wainfleet was “a last-minute situation … where they needed to be rescued.”
Jagger and Aspen were together when he got them.
“They love each other,” Masood said. “They can’t be separated now.”
Masood said he can walk among the tigers unharmed.
“When you understand their behavior and what to do and what not to do, you kind of understand them,” he said.
“They’re big strong animals, but we do know their personalities and how to, you know, maneuver them.”
He knows how powerful they are, though they’ve never sent him to hospital. “Even when they’re jumping on you and trying to hug you and kiss you, they can throw you down if they really want to.”
A quiet approach is the key, he said.
“One thing about tigers and big cats, you never want to roughhouse with them,” Masood said. “You want to be calm and gentle and easy-going.”
Wainfleet isn’t completely anti-tiger, according to the mayor.
“If you’re going to want to do something like this, you come to the township, you ask for permission, you work through the planning act, you work with staff to make sure that it’s all done properly and then we can truly discuss it,” Grant said.
“Don’t just come into our little, small town and decide that you don’t have to listen to the rules and just go ahead and do it. Because it’s not just about you; it’s about everybody. We’re a small town and everybody has concerns.”
This past Tuesday, Wainfleet’s council denied Masood’s request to keep tigers on his property, Grant said.
“It is clear that dangerous animals such as tigers, lions and hyenas are not permitted in the township,” said the mayor.
Masood was also keeping a four-month-old male white tiger cub named Atlas and a 10-month-old male spotted hyena named Marilyn at his Wainfleet property. But they were seized last November by Ontario Animal Welfare Services because they weren’t getting the proper food, drinking water or care. Masood recently lost his bid to have Atlas and Marilyn returned.
“A hyena is one of the most dangerous predators in the world,” Grant said. “That’s a concern.”
Wainfleet brought in an exotic animal bylaw in 2018 after dealing with escapes from the Ringtail Ranch and Rescue, which was shut down that year after reportedly being declared a health hazard.
“We know that animals can escape — it’s happened,” Grant said. “Thankfully there was no one harmed in those situations. But the risk is real.”
Ringtail Ranch housed several exotic animals, including a lion, a type of South American raccoon, a lynx and marmosets. In one instance, the CBC reported, a local politician was ambushed by a lemur named Lawson. On another occasion, the owner was bitten on both forearms by his lion.
Between 2013 and 2018, Wainfleet officials documented 17 instances of biting and scratching at Ringtail Ranch.
“I wasn’t part of the council in 2018, but I do remember a lot of the problems that happened back then,” Grant said.
“There were a few incidents of kids sticking hands in cages and getting bit, animals escaping; that kind of stuff was happening.”
That factored into the recent decision to deny Masood the tiger exemption he was seeking, said the mayor.
“We don’t want to have something like that happen again,” Grant said.
Ringtail Ranch didn’t have tigers, but at least one lynx did escape from the petting zoo, Grant said, noting it was once spotted “roaming the streets” in front of a Port Colbourne gas station.
Masood appealed an order keeping Atlas and Marilyn in the chief animal welfare inspector’s care.
“I find that it was necessary for the (chief animal welfare inspector) to keep the animals in its care to alleviate their distress,” Tassia Poynter, vice-chair of the Animal Care Review Board, wrote in a recent decision.
“I also find that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the animals would be placed in distress if returned to” Masood.
Poynter said Masood “has not demonstrated an adequate understanding of the complexity of meeting either animals’ unique dietary needs nor has he outlined any plan for procuring or providing the foods necessary to meet those needs.”
Masood argued “that the animals were not in distress and that it was unnecessary to keep them in the (chief animal welfare inspector’s) care to relieve any distress,” said the March 9 decision.
“He also submits that (the chief animal welfare inspector) improperly imposed zoo-style standards of care in relation to the animals and that its concerns amount to preferred husbandry practices rather than necessary care.”
Masood told the Animal Care Review Board he’s addressed the conditions that caused Atlas and Marilyn to be kept in care.
But Poynter disagreed.
She dismissed Masood’s application for return of the animals, saying while he’s made efforts to address concerns about their care, some of the problems “have not ceased to exist despite those efforts, and several factors present significant barriers to (Masood) meeting the animals’ unique care and enclosure needs.”
Masood plans to appeal the decision not to return Atlas and Marilyn to provincial court, he said Saturday, noting the animals are being kept at Safari Niagara Zoological Park.
“We’re looking forward to getting decisions on our request for a judicial review.”
Masood owns the property in Wainfleet, Ont., where Atlas and Marilyn were being kept and the two sub-adult tigers must now leave. But he doesn’t live there.
“The tenants of the property are Michael Pynapples and his wife and daughter who live in the residential home with their dog and three cats. Mr. Pynapples is the primary caretaker for Atlas and Marilyn, in addition to two sub-adult tigers owned by (Masood) that are also kept at the property,” Poynter wrote.
On Nov. 18, 2025, Animal Welfare Services Inspector Kedra Servos and the organization’s veterinarian, Dr. Pauline Delnatte, as well as other AWS inspectors and police officers, visited Masood’s property.
“At the conclusion of the inspection, Dr. Delnatte advised Inspector Servos in writing that Atlas and Marilyn needed to be removed to relieve distress caused by ‘standards of care, enclosures, distress including concerns for psychological distress,’” said Poynter’s decision.
“Atlas and Marilyn were removed that same day and subsequently boarded and examined at an institutional zoo facility.”
Delnatte expressed concern about Pynapples’ “lack of expertise and experience with captive wildlife as Atlas’ caregiver,” said the decision.
The vet “stated that Mr. Pynapples lacked understanding of key concepts critical in animal husbandry such as the word ‘enrichment’ and appeared to lack awareness of the danger Atlas could present. Dr. Delnatte stated that Mr. Pynapples told her on November 18, 2025 that tigers were like domestic cats, ‘just ten times bigger.’”
Before they were seized, Atlas and Marilyn were being kept in “inappropriate” enclosures, Poynter said.
“A dog crate, residential living room, and outdoor deck do not constitute an appropriate enclosure for a tiger cub, nor is a 1,000-litre water can in a windowless, unheated shipping container an appropriate enclosure for a spotted hyena.”
Poynter acknowledged that Masood has since “made changes to his property in good faith to accommodate new indoor and outdoor enclosures for both animals following their removal.”
But she was not “persuaded that those changes — most of which remained incomplete as of December 5, 2025 — met the animals’ unique enclosure needs as described by Dr. Delnatte.”
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