{"id":680579,"date":"2026-06-02T21:35:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T21:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/680579\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T21:35:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T21:35:20","slug":"ed-the-zebra-one-year-after-his-adventure-in-rutherford-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/680579\/","title":{"rendered":"Ed the zebra: One year after his adventure in Rutherford County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CHRISTIANA, Tenn. (WTVF) \u2014 One year ago, a zebra named Ed escaped from a farm in Rutherford County.<\/p>\n<p>He quickly became a national sensation, roaming neighborhoods right up until his dramatic capture.<\/p>\n<p>It was quite a story.<\/p>\n<p>Capturing the imagination of so many and inspiring shirts, mugs, children&#8217;s books and artwork.<\/p>\n<p>Ed had his 15 minutes of fame&#8230; and he&#8217;s definitely not forgotten.<\/p>\n<p>The iconic image so many remember is of Ed the zebra being airlifted to safety after capture.<\/p>\n<p>His time on the run in Christiana, Tennessee made national headlines&#8230; and left a lasting impression.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No one could imagine the amount of calls and texts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ed&#8217;s owners, Taylor and Laura Ford, talked about how it all started one day after Ed escaped.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think he got through one of the fences across the creek, about 75 yards from here,&#8221; said Taylor.<\/p>\n<p>After that, neighbors reported seeing Ed roaming the streets.<\/p>\n<p>And then Sky5 captured video of the zebra running through a large meadow.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was so stressful, our fear of him near the road and someone getting hurt,&#8221; said Laura.<\/p>\n<p>The Fords say they heard from about every cowboy in Middle Tennessee offering to help.<\/p>\n<p>But you can&#8217;t safely lasso a wild zebra like you would a horse.<\/p>\n<p>So, they hired a team out of Texas to help.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Chase it out with a gator&#8230; away from the interstate&#8230; and a team in the woods pushed it out into the open field,&#8221; said Taylor<\/p>\n<p>They used a helicopter to swoop down and drop a net over the zebra.<\/p>\n<p>He was then restrained, and a week after he escaped Ed was airlifted away&#8230; far away.<\/p>\n<p>The Fords say he&#8217;s now safe and happy living at a ranch with other zebras in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Gone from Tennessee&#8230; but, certainly not forgotten.<\/p>\n<p>Do you have more information about this story?  You can email me at nick.beres@newschannel5.com<\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/lelan-recommends.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Students help relaunch donation drive for Monroe Carell Jr. Children&#8217;s Hospital at Vanderbilt<\/p>\n<p>Young or old, we all love to play board and card games! Those games become even more important when you are indoors and don&#8217;t have the ability to get outside, like patients in a hospital. Austin Pollack shares the story of students in a Nashville family who have helped re-launch the Red Wagon project to collect games for patients at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children&#8217;s Hospital at Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"cms-textAlign-right\">&#8211; Lelan Statom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHRISTIANA, Tenn. (WTVF) \u2014 One year ago, a zebra named Ed escaped from a farm in Rutherford County.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-680579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}