Citizens take over night-shift capybara search
Dusk purples the sky and the plaintive calls of a young capybara echo through the air of High Park.
As darkness falls, a member of park staff and a zoo keeper sit silently in an orange all-terrain vehicle with glum faces, waiting for their two runaways to return home.
Neither wants to be identified in a report about their assignment to recapture the renegade rodents.
Two capybaras, since dubbed Bonnie and Clyde, somehow slipped their handlers Tuesday morning and hoofed it into the almost 400-acre park.
The park worker is deeply tanned and dressed in a fluorescent orange vest, while the zookeeper wears a purple T-shirt and yellow polka-dot boots — not the usual uniform for a stakeout.
But that’s exactly what they’re doing this Thursday evening. Inside the zoo they sit to wait and watch, playing recordings of the shrill whistle and coughing barks of a capybara, after laying out bait, including fruit and sweet corn, in hopes the prodigal beasts will return home.
Outside the front gate I sit in my car, an unwelcome member of the stakeout team, scanning the bush vigilantly as the light fades.
The wooden gate is shut after dusk to keep out the public, but the zookeeper has assured me the capybaras would be able to squeeze through a doggy-door sized hole between the wooden planks and pavement and return to their pen.
The slats bear a number of warnings, including a small sign that reads “emergency gate.” The animals have been on the run for four days, an unprecedented length of time for zoo escapees — emergency gate indeed.
The staff member’s flashlights probe the bushes and pens around the zoo, but as the llamas settle in for the night the two searchers call it quits, leaving shortly after 10 p.m.
It wasn’t much of a stakeout after all.
As the sound of their motor wound down in the distance, silence settled on the parking lot at the end of Deer Pen Rd. and all manner of nocturnal creatures began to stir.
The zoo’s peacock, a former jailbreaker itself, cried out into the dark, perhaps cheering on the rebellious rodents and their bid for freedom.
From time to time a lonely set of headlights swept through the nighttime mist as curious citizens came to gawk at the gate that couldn’t hold the two bulldog-sized desperados.
Tiago DaSilva was hanging out with a friend in the park after midnight. He said a few days ago he didn’t even know capybaras existed.
“I don’t really have a lot of expertise on the lore of capybaras,” he said, explaining that he first heard of them on the news while using the elliptical at his gym.
DaSilva said he trusts park staff to recapture the animals, but was worried their long absence could spell disaster.
“If I were to hear they were hit by a car on Lake Shore I wouldn’t be that surprised,” said the 21-year-old, quickly adding: “I’m a sucker for animals so I hope they’re all good.”
Around midnight the white glow of an LED flashlight blazed through the bushes and Steve Petrovski emerged, a cigarette hanging from his lips.
The 49-year-old had spent both nights of his days off slogging through the trees and mud, a sturdy walking stick in one hand and his cellphone playing capybara distress calls in the other.
“I’m not an animal nut, but I really do love nature,” he said, explaining he has two cats and a bearded dragon lizard at home. “I wanted to be up north, but I couldn’t pull that off so I figured I might as well be here trying to help find the poor little guys.”
So Petrovski took to the woods, beating the bushes for the missing beasts, to no avail. “I seemed to attract everything but capybara,” he said. “I’ve seen ducks, raccoons and cardinals.”
The limo driver admitted to limited experience with South American rodents, but wasn’t too concerned about their safety.
“People say they’re so passive, but they have some big-ass teeth, buddy,” he said. “If they got freaked out and tried to nip at you, they could take a good chunk out of you, but I think it’ll be fine.”
High Park is a busy place and picnickers, joggers and cyclists have all been asked to keep an eye out, but Petrovski said the only way to find the furry fugitives is to get off the beaten track.
“I think it’s going to be one of those things where you turn around on the path and they’re just sitting there or some couple is making out and one of them brushes their leg or something,” said Petrovski. Sometime after 1 a.m. even Petrovski, the selfless searcher, headed home, and I was left alone in the dark.
Street lights created pools of light on the road and sometimes the shadows of small animals flitted across, but no sign of anything bigger.
Suddenly a rustling in the bushes made me sit up.
With a crackling of leaves and a popping of sticks, a chunky raccoon emerged. With nonchalance so practised it approached grace, the masked mammal rolled out of the woods and onto the road before sauntering off.
The capybaras may be the new kids in the park, but there’s no doubt who really rules this urban jungle.