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A leopard escaped from a zoo in east China and wandered onto a residential property before a family dog chased it away. According to Shanghai’s news portal, The Paper, a video of this event was released on May 12, 2021.
The Hangzhou Safari Park kept the escape of three leopards for nearly three weeks before the public found out. So far they have been able to locate two of the missing big cats.
In the video footage, the leopard is seen walking across the unroofed area of the property before it laid down in a corner. Soon afterward, a black-furred dog enters the courtyard and appears to briefly standoff with the big animal.
Neither animal initiated an attack, however, the bred-in captivity two-year-old leopard seemed to be frightened by the family dog. The leopard is later seen running back across the courtyard and escaping over a high wall. The big animal knocked down several tiles during its escape.
Authorities are hoping this is the leopard was the elusive third cat. According to the city’s deputy mayor, Hangzhou Safari Park, the three juvenile cats escaped on April 19th due to a staff handling error.
The zoo did not admit to the mishap until May 10th — when members of the public spotted the big cats roaming in nearby villages.
One of the leopards was captured on April 21 — two days after it escaped. Authorities were able to catch the second one on May 8th. The third has been hiding from capture for over three weeks. An affiliate with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, zoologist Zhang Jinshuo, is highly concerned about the animal’s well-being.
Zhang said, due to the animal being born in captivity it has no wilderness survival skills. The big cat could be hiding or even dead. Thousands of people have been involved in searching for the animal. They have even been using hundreds of high-tech drones and hunting dogs. However, there has been no sign of the big creature.
Xu Aichun, an expert with the College of Life Sciences at China Jiliang University, announced on May 12th that he found undigested bamboo leaves and fur when he examined the leopard’s scat found the day before. This suggests the animal has either killed a small animal like a rat or ate a dead animal since it has escaped.
Written by Sheena Robertson
Source:
MSN: Family Dog Fends Off Escaped Leopard Trying to Enter Home; by John Feng
Featured and Top Image Courtesy of antti.keskitalo’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inline Image Courtesy of Mel’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License