The New Yorker arrested for keeping a fully-grown tiger in his fifth-floor apartment says he loves the beast and misses him terribly.

Antoine Yates, 31, faces seven years in prison for reckless endangerment after Ming, the 400lb Siberian-Bengal tiger, was discovered.

Authorities were tipped off by neighbours who complained about the stench from Yates’ Harlem flat.

Police abseiled down the side of the apartment building and shot the tiger with a tranquiliser dart through a fifth-floor window.

Part-time taxi driver Yates was arrested at hospital where he was being treated for bites from Ming.

Despite being battered and bitten, he said he wanted to be reunited with his friend – who eats 25 chicken thighs-a-day.

“I still feel heartbroken, torn up. The pain is nothing. It is the pain in my heart that really bothers me. I really do miss him,” Yates said.

“He was like my brother, my best friend. He was my only friend, really.”

But the chances of a reunion are unlikely, as Ming has been shipped to an animal refuge in Ohio.

A three-foot alligator-like creature also found in Yates’ seven-room apartment has been sent to Indiana.