Escaped leopard stays one step ahead of its pursuers
The last of a trio of leopards that escaped from a safari park in Hangzhou continued to evade capture yesterday, outwitting its pursuers in a mountainside game of big cat and mouse.
The leopard – one of three juvenile siblings thought to have broken free from Hangzhou Safari Park last weekend – was spotted about noon near the village of Hejiacun, around 5.5km from its former home, according to The Beijing News.
The animal was caught on camera by a drone, but by the time its pursuers arrived on the scene it had disappeared into the mountains, the report said.
A restaurant owner in Hejiacun said a special police team was leading the hunt and that people had been urged to stay away from the mountain.
“Villagers are staying at home, but shops and restaurants remain open,” she said. “About 500 people are here to help [the search].”
According to a report by state broadcaster CCTV, more than 1,000 people from 22 villages had been involved in a round-theclock search since Saturday.
The area in which the leopard was spotted yesterday is a popular tourist spot known for its green tea bushes.
“We usually go to the mountains to pick tea leaves, but it’s now the off-season so there are not many people there.”
The owner of a hostel in Hejiacun said he was not too concerned about the presence of a big cat in the neighbourhood. “At night when the leopard is active, we just stay at home so there’s no need to worry,” he said. “And it’s not the tea picking season so we don’t have many tourists.”
Nevertheless, the story of the escaped leopards has gripped the imagination of the 10 million residents of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, and millions more across the country.
While it is still unknown exactly how the big cats managed to escape, they are thought to have been on the run for about a week, before two were rounded up and returned to the park on Saturday.
The operators of the safari park, which on Friday denied claims that some of its animals were missing, issued an apology on Saturday saying it did not come clean about the escape as it did not want to cause a panic.
It also sought to downplay the risk the big cats posed to the public, saying they were only juveniles and not aggressive.
The safari park, which is one of the region’s most popular tourist spots, attracting 100,000 visitors over the May Day holiday, has been closed since Saturday morning and several people associated with it have been taken into custody, the Fuyang district government said earlier.