Safari park hid leopard escapes for three weeks

BEIJING: A safari park in the eastern China city of Hangzhou concealed the escape of three leopards – one of which was still at large – for nearly three weeks to prevent negative publicity affecting its visitor numbers during last week’s May Day holiday, police said yesterday.

Police said personnel cleaning the leopards’ enclosure at the Hangzhou Safari Park on April 19 violated unspecified safety regulations, allowing the animals to escape.

One was recaptured two days later by the privately-run park, and a second on Friday by a larger search involving government agencies that was launched after news of the escapes went viral.

A hunt for the third was still under way among hills covered by forest and tea plantations, after fresh paw prints were found on Sunday.

Local residents first began reporting leopard sightings late last week, but park officials only came clean after police began questioning them as part of a subsequent investigation, said Fei Yuezhong, a top official in Hangzhou’s police department.

Fei said the company’s general manager, who has been identified as Zhang Dequan, issued an internal order to conceal the escapes.

Local officials said five people associated with the park, including Zhang, had been detained.

The official search effort launched on Friday involved more than 4,000 people, some equipped with night-vision goggles, 450 airborne drones with heat-detection capability, and 85 hunting dogs.

Public outrage soared after video emerged of one of the cats being mauled by a pack of fierce dogs.

Another clip released by a television outlet appeared to show one of the recaptured leopards in an enclosure with part of a hind foot missing and the wound untreated.

“What did these young leopards do wrong to have to suffer the consequences of such serious mismanagement, and to be tracked and mauled by a search team with vicious dogs?” said one of a string of angry posts accompanying the clip on China’s Twitter-like Weibo. – AFP