And I thought the US was the only place to overreact

Toy tiger causes UK police alert

The Associated Press

LONDON - Police scrambled helicopters and ordered tranquilizers to hunt what they feared was an escaped wild animal in southern England - but found that the tiger was a toy.

Hampshire Police say they responded after several residents called in to say they'd seen a white tiger in a field near a golf course in Hedge End, near the English coastal city of Southampton.

A tongue-in-cheek recorded message posted to the force's media line said that after "a brief stalk through the Hedge End savannah ... it became obvious that the tiger was a stuffed, life-sized toy."

A second message posted on Sunday emphasized police had a duty to take such sightings seriously. As for the renegade tiger, "it's being treated as lost property."

A helicopter, I wonder how much it cost for all that, you would think that a police car could have driven by and looked.

Just as bad as the story of the bomb squad defusing a bag of pork ribs on a park bench last year.