I must have missed something but they've been making Ligers and Tigons for years. I believe Siegfried and Roy and B&B Circus even had some in their acts at one time.
Of course these are artificial hybrids made in captivity. I think that they are sometimes fertile though- unlike most hybrids.
Oddly, there is an overpopulation of most of the common big cats in zoos and people have been trying to keep them as housepets a lot recently. I'd hate to change THAT litter box.
Rather than worry about hybrids escaping and overrunning the natural world I'd be more worried that there is a natural world left for them to overrun. Habitat loss is the number one destroyer of species, especially the big predators.
Frankly, snakes eat less and don't shred you when they get angry....
And of course Tigon makes a nice elastic tubing.....
WC
