Zoo chiefs’ anger after escaped lynx is shot dead
ANIMAL park bosses said last night they were ‘devastated and outraged’ after a lynx that escaped last month was shot dead on the orders of council officials.
The 18-month-old Eurasian lynx called Lillith had gone missing from Borth Wild Animal Kingdom in West Wales.
Ceredigion Council announced on Friday that the animal – about twice the size of a domestic cat – had been killed after she ‘strayed over to a populated area’.
But in a statement posted on the park’s Facebook page yesterday, a spokesman said: ‘The decision to kill her was not ours and we in no way agreed to, or participated in, the shooting of our baby lynx. We are truly devastated and outraged that this happened.’
Andrew Venables, a marksman who runs a local firearms training school, shot the cat and said the possibility of tranquillising it had never been considered. ‘The very sad truth is the fact that an animal was allowed to escape in the first place and that the owners were unable to catch it,’ he said.
‘Sadly, action had to be taken after this farce.’
There were several sightings of the cat during an operation by keepers, assisted at times by a police helicopter, to return the animal to the park near Aberystwyth.
However, Ceredigion Council said the decision had been taken after the risk it posed increased to ‘severe’. Dozens of people responded to the council’s statement, attacking it for not sedating the lynx.
One wrote: ‘Shame on Ceredigion.’