One year ago today, a striped escapee locals later nicknamed Ed turned a stretch of Interstate 24 outside Christiana into must-see roadside drama, trotting through traffic near the Buchanan exit and forcing deputies to briefly shut the highway while they tried to keep both the animal and motorists safe. The surreal sighting spawned a viral video and a weeklong search that had much of Rutherford County watching for black-and-white stripes.
A Year After The I-24 Sighting
According to WSMV, the zebra arrived in Christiana on May 30, 2025, and was reported missing the next morning. Video circulated by deputies and neighbors showed the animal moving along both eastbound and westbound lanes near the Buchanan exit before slipping into a wooded area, and authorities briefly closed parts of I-24 to keep drivers safe, as reported by WSMV.
Search And Capture
Deputies spent the next several days trying to track Ed across fields and neighborhoods, deploying drones and leaning on tips from residents while warning people not to approach the nervous animal, CBS News reported. The zebra turned up in multiple spots before teams finally located him in a pasture, where aviation crews swooped in and airlifted him into a waiting trailer, according to footage released by deputies and a sheriff's office statement.
How It Ended
The Associated Press reported that Ed was ultimately captured in that pasture on June 8, 2025, and flown to handlers after being secured in a net. Video released by deputies shows the zebra wrapped in the net and carried by helicopter back toward the trailer. Owners later confirmed the animal was unharmed and said they worked with animal trainers to secure him, according to local reporting and the sheriff's office statement.
Exotic-Pet Rules And Reaction
Tennessee law divides live wildlife into classes, and the statute that spells out those classifications, Tennessee Code §70-4-403, treats members of the horse family (Equidae) differently from prohibited predators. That legal distinction helps explain how a privately owned zebra could be kept under state rules, according to the code published on Justia. Even so, animal advocates stressed that zebras are wild animals and a poor fit for back-yard life. CBS News quoted Born Free USA, warning that escapes like Ed's put both animals and people at risk.
On May 31, 2026, the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office marked the anniversary with photos and a short timeline on Facebook, reminding residents that the whole episode captured both the humor and the hazards of exotic-pet ownership, as posted by the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office. For many in Rutherford County, Ed's brief romp across I-24 remains a bizarre small-town story that also kicked off a wider conversation about permits, transport, and who should be able to keep non-native animals in the first place.
